Team: Tiegan Aitken, Sasha Hill, Abby Taylor & Phoebe Watton,
We arrived at Chichester Tennis Club early to warm up for the day’s matches. The girls were in a confident mood and looking forward to the event.
Due to one of the counties pulling out we were put into a group of five and had to play against all the other counties in the box. Our first contest was against Surrey, with Tiegan playing the first match.
Her opponent was an aggressive baseliner who looked to strike early and big. This didn’t phase Tiegan and her ability to move the ball around the court, defend the attacking shots and all round consistency proved to much for her opponent and she went on to record a convincing win for Kent.
Next on was Phoebe; she was playing a girl that she had never beaten before. This girl was a strong left-handed opponent who was able to dictate points with her forehand etc. Phoebe had a shaky start and lost the first set but with her strong mental attitude was able to move on quickly and started to dominate her opponent in the second set by making her opponent hit her worse shots with ruthless decision making. Phoebe won the second set and then went on to win the championship tie break to give Kent a 2-0 lead.
Sasha Hill took to the court after Phoebe’s match and her opponent was a strong competitor. The match was tightly contested (most games going to sudden death deuce) but unfortunately Sasha came out second best. I couldn’t fault her effort as she competed really well. After the singles the score was 2-1 to Kent.
Going into the doubles I was confident that Sasha and Phoebe could get a result against the Surrey 1 and 2 players.
The girls lost the first set but after a talk at the change of ends about their volleying they came out strong and won the second set 4-0. The championship tiebreak could have went either way but Surrey managed to win it 10-7 to send the tie into a doubles tiebreak shootout. Both teams kept with the same players and after a tightly contested match Surrey won the shootout to win the tie 3-2.
Our next tie was against Sussex and Tiegan again kicked off proceedings. Her opponent this time was a different style to her first match and Tiegan found herself 3-0 down at the sit down. A quick chat about playing with energy and where her opponent was scoring points transformed the match and Tiegan cam back to win in straight sets. This put Kent 1-0 up with Phoebe’s match to come.
Phoebe’s opponent was a consistent player who didn’t go for many winners. During the match Phoebe played some really good points where she rallied with her opponent, waited for a short ball and then looked to attack. Unfortunately her opponent played well and won the match to level the tie at 1-1.
Sasha was next up on court against the Sussex number 1. In the first set Sasha played some really good points where she caused her opponent trouble by making her move around the court with good width but also bringing her into the net.
The first set went the way of the Sussex player and Sasha was getting a bit frustrated at not taking her chances. At the change of ends we spoke about her strength of being able to think about what is going on in matches and when she gets frustrated etc her decisions become fuzzy. This seemed to help as during the second set she showed no negative appearance and pushed her opponent all the way. The Sussex player managed to win a tightly contested second set to give Sussex a 2-1 advantage going into the doubles.
Tiegan and Abby joined up to play the doubles and played a good mix of attacking and consistent rallying. They gave their opponents a lot to think about with their dogged determination to keep fighting. The first set went to the tiebreak that Kent lost, the second set was equally a close but the Sussex girls held their nerve to win. This meant Kent lost 3-1
Day 2 arrived with the Kent players still in high spirits to compete hard and get some good results.
Our first tie was against Hampshire and Abby Taylor played the first Match. Abby played a really solid match where she frustrated her opponent by being really solid at the back but when right going for a more attacking shot. Her opponent also didn’t like high balls to her backhand that Abby exploited on numerous occasions. Abby won the match in straight sets to give Kent a 1-0 lead.
Wins for Tiegan and Phoebe followed to give Kent a 3-0 lead after the singles. Sasha and Phoebe joined up to the play the doubles and won in straight sets to complete a 4-0 win.
Our second tie was against Dorset. Abby, Tiegan and Sasha played winning all their matches. Tiegan and Abby played the doubles and won to seal a 4-0 win.
Overall I thought the girls competed really well, listened, gave it their all and played some fantastic tennis.
Kent would have been very proud of their efforts and as captain I couldn’t have asked for anymore.
Team Captain: Ricky Gooch