The St. Patrick's day weekend was a very successful one for the 9&U girls and boys from Hertfordshire at the Winter National Finals taking place at the National Tennis Centre, Roehampton.
The overall standard of the boys event was excellent with some quality trading, building and finishing of the points. The technical competency of the players was solid and in particular the standard of serving was high with most players having a simple set up, good rhythm and correct pre -throw position with or near to the correct grip.
Oliver Tarvet produced an amazing performance and showed great determination getting to every ball in every point he played. He got to the final and lost in a very competitive match against James Vincent. Another amazing Performance on the day was by Andre Raath who trains with Oliver at the Batchwood Tennis Centre in St. Albans. Andre managed to finish 5th beating Toby Bloomfield in the 5th/6th place playoff.
The girls played on Saturday and Sophia Underwood and Annabel Davis (Hertfordshire) claimed 3rd and 6th places respectively out of the 16 girls competing in this Tournament. Sophia beat Jessica Dawson 7-4, 7-2 to get to the semi - final where she lost to Andrea Pindea 7-0 7-2. In the fight for 3rd place she beat Isabelle Eaton 7-4, 9-7. Annabel qualified from her group to make the quarter finals and then lost a well fought match against Isabelle Eaton 5-7, 8-6, 7-5.
All the players put a lot of effort into their matches and showed very good attitude during every match they played.
The overall playing level of the girls was the strongest, across the whole draw, which we have had since the introduction of these events 3 years ago. Whilst it is easy to say this every year, the standard and competitiveness of the round robin groups, together with the level of the 9-16 part of the draw, really highlighted the increasing depth of ability and competitiveness amongst the girls.