Girls 10 and Under County Cup Report 2015
Team; Anais Fernandez-Laaksonen, Emily Bolton, Daisy Carpenter & Skye Bentum-Siripi
Our first match this year was against Dorset.
With all 3 girls on at once, we knew it was a great chance to take control and show all of our competitors that we meant business.
Emily and Skye both got off to flying starts, racing to 3-0 leads, daisy was finding her feet, her opponent was being stubborn in the early going. Skye was motoring, taking the first set 4-0 and going up in the second set, her tennis was so effective. Emily was pegged back to 3-2 but won a tense eight game to take the the first set and at the same time Daisy found her rhythm and began to dominate, playing some great tennis.
Daisy and Skye quickly wrapped their matches to put Kent 2-0 ahead, Emily was being made to work hard but showed some great determination, closing out her match 4-2, 4-2. We were 3-0 up, an unassailable lead, it couldn't have been a better start to the day by our girls.
We knew our next match against Surrey was going to be more challenging, they once again had a very good squad of players, but we were confident going into the matches.
Anais playing at 1 had her work cut out against a very classy opponent, but she was sticking with her at the start of the match. On the other courts, Daisy was up, getting off to an amazing start, but Emily was struggling a little. Daisy found herself being tested several times by her plucky opponent, but weathered the storm and built up a very nice lead taking the first set and going 3-0 ahead in the second. Despite losing the first set of her match, Emily quickly turned the tables taking the second and started to look more and more confident. Anais continued to battle hard but it was not to be and she lost against a very strong player. At 9-6 down in the tie break, Emily looked like she may have faulted and out of nowhere Daisy saw herself 4-3 down with her opponent making life seriously difficult,
It was time to breathe, be strong and fight.
In what was a huge effort, Emily saved 4 match points and won the third set, what a performance! With the momentum against her, Daisy dug deep and clinched the second set tie break to put us 2-1 up going into the doubles, a dramatic 10 minutes of play that gave us a real chance of defeating Surrey.
All four of our girls went on to play doubles, Anais and Skye paired up against Dorset with Daisy and Emily taking on Surrey.
Anais and Skye got off to a solid start but Emily and Daisy were struggling, their opponents just were not missing a ball. Unfortunately this carried on and despite a brief rally from our girls and they lost in straight sets which meant they had to go back on for a tiebreak shoot-out to decide the tie that was now level at 2-2.
It wasn't to be, our girls put up a good fight but lost to a better team and on the other court Anais and Skye also slipped up, although this was a dead rubber and had no impact on the result against Dorset as we'd already won.
When we arrived on the second day, the weather was absolutely horrendous, wind and rain and it was forecast for the whole day!
The captains were called to a meeting and we agreed for the format to be reduced to a single set, which I believed increased our chances as anything could happen in such a short match, we needed Surrey to lose and this was probable your best chance.
Although this was the case, we still needed to stay focused on our own matches as we needed to win.
Against Sussex, in possibly the worst playing conditions I have ever seen, Emily, Daisy and Skye all wasted no time at all in taking the lead in their matches.
They were all dealing with the conditions unbelievably well, were professional and smart, Daisy won 4-0, Sky won 4-1 and although Emily's opponent stared to mount a bit of a last minute comeback, she came out a 4-2 winner, we were 3-0 ahead which meant again we had already won the tie.
Our last set of singles matches were against Hampshire, we stuck to the same line up as our girls were on fire.
They didn't disappoint and once again, all won their matches with the loss of just one game between them! It was magnificent to see them take care of business so promptly, Daisy again winning 4-0 along with Skye with Emily winning 4-1, we were also given some news that Surrey had dropped a rubber against Sussex, we still had a chance.
The referee made a good call in putting the doubles match between Sussex and Surrey on first, if this went Sussex way and then they won a tiebreak shoot-out we would have a great chance of winning the group on count back, if Surrey won the doubles against Sussex they would be champions, it was a slight glimmer of hope but we were still hanging on.
In the end, it didn’t go our way, Surrey did win which meant we finished second by the narrowest of margins.
All four of our girls did win the dead doubles rubbers against Sussex and Hamshire which was a great show of character as there really wasn't anything to play for at this stage and and the conditions hadn’t improved at all, it was a tremendous effort from our girls.
I'd like to thank them all for playing and representing Kent, they really did do us proud.
All four of them showed what great players they are and that they all have very bright futures ahead of them.
I'd also like to thank all of the parents for watching and supporting the girls, it made a huge difference and it doesn't go unnoticed.
Harry Bushnell
- Captain