12U Girls County Cup

Lincolnshire girls had a tough yet enjoyable weekend in Oxford. As you can see from the results we had a hard fight on our hands, unfortunately the results didn’t reflect the passion and determination of all the girls. I was yet again impressed with the standard of play, and most of the weekend ran very smoothly.

On the Saturday we had Nottinghamshire as our first opponents and although we didn’t manage to get any wins, The girls fought well in 3 very difficult singles matches. Lucy and Paris had a close tiebreak in the doubles but the Notts girls just had the edge. Next up we faced Northants, they proved to be strong opponents, Rose having a close match as number 3 taking the first set to a tiebreak but unfortunately couldn’t convert it to get the win. The end of the first day saw all Lincolnshire girls under one umbrella drenched during our final rubber with Northants, a rubber which had to be abandoned for the day and continued the following day.

We were disappointed to find out that Lincs had been given a late start two days running, we thought because we had the furthest to travel at the end of the day it might have been taken into consideration; however it was a decision that was out of our hands and also the referee’s hands. First up we faced Leicestershire with some great singles being played by all the girls. At number 2 Paris had a difficult match on her hands and had to deal with both the wind and sun. Rosalind stormed the first set against her opponent but she came back very strong and unfortunately Rose ended up losing in the final set match tiebreak. At number 1 Lucy put in a confident performance and got herself a convincing win. We had a nail biter of a doubles match seeing Lucy and Rose lose in another final set match tiebreak, all 4 girls played some brilliant doubles which was really enjoyable to watch.

Last but not least we played Warwickshire, the overall winners of the group. The level they played was very impressive and our girls decided they would go out and enjoy every minute of it and try to get as many games on the board as possible. The scores do not reflect the great fight Lincs girls put up and they probably played some of the best tennis of the whole weekend. This match was finished after the singles as Warwickshire (already the group winners) decided to leave rather than wait until we had finished our match with Leicestershire to complete our doubles.

Thanks to everyone involved with the weekend – apart from the fact that the venue was too far away for us to travel daily and the late start times both days meant that we returned home later than hoped - it went really well and everyone had a great time, food that was provided at the club was lovely and all the staff were very friendly.

Lastly I would like to thank the families of the girls for travelling to support and the girls for being fab all weekend. I look forward to next year.