On 30th and 31st May Leicestershire 10&U girls qualified for the national finals in Bolton, winning a group consisting of Northants, Lincs, Notts, and Warks. The girls played fantastic tennis on the day and it's the first time for (many many) years Leicestershire have achieved qualification into the national finals stage. The team consisted of Talia Neilson-Gatenby, Maisie Smith, Deni Smith, and Roisin Boyd.
The national finals had 8 counties competing in Bolton on the 12th, 13th and 14th June (boys and girls) and comprised of many of the best 10&U players in the country. The girls fought valiantly and competed with real spirit over the 3 days. We had an exciting match with Beds on the Friday which after being 2-1 up after the singles, we lost on a tiebreaker shoot out (Talia Neilson-Gatenby beat Jacqueline Oganwale the No.1 in the country). We then narrowly lost to Staffordshire (the eventual winners) but had a number of matches go to a 3rd set tie breaker showing how close the counties were in standard in the competition. The girls responded superbly and showed real team spirit to beat West of Scotland. On the last day we had a very close match vs Berkshire which didn't quite go our way (Roisin won her singles match from a set and 0-3 down which was a fantastic effort). We finished 6th in the country overall and we can be very proud of their performances over the weekend and the way they conducted themselves off the court throughout.
We aim to keep making progress and go even further in the competition next year.