Lincolnshire men travelled to Hull to contest group 2 of Mens Winter County Cup.
Day One: On paper before play started Lincs looked to have a massive task on to try and survive in what i believe is the highest group we have ever been in! Without our No1 player Dan Cox and also Joe Woolley for the weekend it promised to be seriously tough. First day we were up against a formidable Yorkshire side. At seed 6 Will Mason played out of his skin as always going down in three extremely tight sets, unfortunately losing a couple of match points in the process. At 5 Harry Burley lost reasonably comfortably, and it was a similar story at 4 for Men's team debutant Sean Hodkin and also at 3 for Henry Beesley, leaving Lincs 4-0 down. At seed 2 Dominic Beesley produced a fantastic performance to win his match in three sets before Ed Allinson went down to his Full time,opponent in straight sets. 5-1 down going into the doubles, losses for the pairing of Burley & Dave Scales at 3 and Allinson/Mason at 2 left it 7-1 to Yorkshire before the first pair of Beesley & Ed Colclough claimed a brilliant victory to leave the final score at Lincs 2-7 Yorkshire.
Day Two: On day one Kent were missing a couple of players and therefore went down to a very strong Norfolk team meaning we were up against Norfolk on day two. Mason sat the singles out due to injury meaning Scales came in at 6 but couldnt produce his best tennis going down comfortably. However this time at seed 5, Hodkin took an easy and deserved victory, 1-1, at seed 4 on his singles debut Colclough battled for 3 hrs to gain a brilliant win and with a fantastic performance at 3 from Henry BeesleyLincs were 3-1 up. Dom Beesley at 2 looked in control of his match but his opponent drew on all his experience and despite having match point, Dom went down in three high quality sets. At 1 Allinson had the unenviable task of playing former world no.176 Richard Bloomfield. Despite looking likely to take the second set, Bloomfield emerged victorious 64 76. That left the score 3-3 going into the doubles. A good win for Allinson/Mason at 2 was the only rubber gained in the doubles, sending Lincs to a very tough 5-4 defeat.
Day Three: Going into Day Three we knew that we needed a 6-3 win to survive against an exceptionally strong Kent team. Mason came back in for the singles and despite serving for the match went down in three sets in a very good quality encounter. Similarly at 5, Burley came back in for the day and again having served for the match went down in a final set tie-break! At 4 a brilliant performance from Hodkin put a rubber on the board for Lincs. Unlike the previous day Henry couldnt find his best tennis going down comfortably at 3. At 2 another top performance from Dom Beesley resulted in a comfortable but highly impressive victory. At 1 Allinson faced another world ranked player, eventually going down in three close sets, meaning Lincs had no way of staying up. Because of the this the doubles rubbers were academic and therefore not needed to be played.
This weekend despite the relegation was the highest quality of tennis ive been involved in whilst playing for the county. All 8 guys who played gave everything they had and performed way above themselves all weekend! Hopefully in a couple of years we will be back at group 2 and with the same attitude and application maybe group 1 after that!
Ed Allinson, Men’s Team Captain