This years order of play was identical to last year, we started off against Dorset, a team who we'd been very successful against in recent years. Lois took to the court first and stormed through her match at the blink of an eye playing some very offensive and accurate tennis. It's always nice to get the first win under your belt and this really did set the mood for the rest of the team.
Lauren Foster and Syke Bentum-Sirei soon followed, crushing their opponents without a hint of a wobble, it was the perfect start for Kent and a perfect way of settling our nerves.
Next up we played Surrey, the team that we narrowly missed out to last year, they had a strong team as ever but after our blistering start, I was confident we could gain revenge against this team who we have so often been second best against through the years.
Lois was again in great form, continuing on from her last match, this time however, the opposition was strong, competitive and she knew every trick in the book to get under Lois' skin and although Lois got off to a flyer, she soon found herself in a battle. Although she was the youngest in team, Lois showed great maturity and found her game and focus at the right time to clinch the match and put Kent 1-0 ahead.
Lauren was up against a real tricky player who was using both her drop shot very effectively in the wind, whilst she battled hard as she always does, her opponent was just too strong for her and the tie was level at 1-1.
Skye was up against an old foe from last year, it was one of those matches that could have gone either way, Skye was playing well but kept finding herself a game behind, she just needed to relax and the games would come and sure enough they did and she won a tightly contested first set.
After a brief rain delay she went back out and sprinted to the finish line, her opponent had no answer to her powerful baseline play and Skye put us 2-1 ahead going into the doubles. We weren't taking anything for granted as we were in the same position last year before being denied.
History looked like it could repeat itself when Skye and Lois dropped the first set with some inconsistent play, when they were good, they were great but they couldn't seem to string enough points together. This changed in the second set, our girls started to find their form and rhythm, they took the set comfortably to force a match tiebreak, could this be our time.
The answer was yes, Skye and Lois continued to dominate and they crossed the finish line with style, we'd beaten Surrey and we'd just given ourselves a great chance of qualifying for the finals, however, we knew we were only 50% of the way there and it was important not to get ahead of ourselves.
The next day we arrived and played Hampshire & IOW, all three girls went on at the same time. Before I could blink, Lois, Lauren and Syke completed their matches I what must have been record timing, their opponents were outclassed by our girls and we were 3-0 ahead and that meant if we beat Sussex we were the regional champions.
Sussex are always dangerous as they are playing on home turf.
There was a little added pressure as we knew if we won the match, we’d put Kent in the national finals for the first time in this age group.
It was not easy by any means, after the singles we were 2-1 ahead, skye and Lauren won but Lois lost the closet of matches on a tie-break, it was back to the doubles and at one set all, it could have gone either way.
In another third set tiebreak, it was our girls who cam out on top after pulling themselves together and completely dominating the tiebreak.
We’d finally done it, Sunderland here we come!