Lincs men travelled to Easton College, Norwich for a very tough looking group 3.
On the first day we came up against a very strong Dorest side. Fortunately for lincs we had top British male player Dan Cox available for the day and his presence really boosted the team! At seeds 5 & 6 we had Dave Hubbard and Henry Beesley. Dave went down in a high quality, tight encounter, in three sets, and Henry unfortunately went down convincingly at 5. 2-0 down, attention switched to Dom Beesley and Joe Woolley at seeds 3 & 4 respectively. Both winning very good matches, Dom in two tight sets and Joe 76 in the final set. 2-2, with Ed Allinson at seed 2 and Dan Cox at 1. After a long and very close match Ed lost 76 in the final set, whilst Dan cruised through his singles. 3-3 going into the doubles, a win for Allinson and Will Mason at 3 and a loss for Dom Beesley & Hubbard at 2 left it all down to Cox & Woolley at 1, never in doubt they won with plenty to spare giving Lincs a 5-4 victory!
Day 2, and a match against a strengthened Warwickshire. Dan unfortunately had to leave us for a tournament elsewhere, leaving Will Mason at 6 and Hubbard at 5. Both played brilliant tennis to give us 2 wins. Unfortunately three, three set losses for Henry, Dom and Joe at 4,3 and 2 respectively and a straight sets loss for Allinson at 1 left us 4-2 down. Winning all 3 doubles was always going to be tough, a loss for Hubbard & Woolley at 3 meant Lincs couldn't win, but an important 2nd rubber win for Allinson & Mason, plus a loss for Dom and Ed Colclough, making his senior debut, meant a 6-3 defeat for Lincs.
Final day 3, and a tense day with all teams in the group on 1 win following Dorset defeating Lincs' day 3 opponents Leicestershire on day 2! Any result was possible although the 8-1 win required for promotion looked unlikely! First up were convincing wins for Mason & Hubbard to give us the perfect start. Following on from that, 2 massive wins for Henry and Dom, put Lincs one win away from guaranteeing staying up. A disappointing 3 set loss for Woolley at 2 was followed by a good 3 set win for Allinson at 1 leaving Lincs 5-1 up going into the doubles. All 3 doubles were needed for promotion. At 3, Dom and Ed Colclough looked down and out, but some inspired tennis from the pair resulted in a mega tense 10-8 in the third set tie break win. Again at a set down Woolley and Hubbard looked in trouble but once again pulled out some incredible tennis to win 10-6 in the third set tie-break, leaving it down to Allinson & Mason to seal a straight sets win at 1 and promotion to group 2!!!
This team have had an incredible amount of success going from group 5 all the way to the dizzy heights of group 2, and next year mixing it with the likes of Kent, Yorkshire and Norfolk! Every player must take huge credit and with a few players missing, that will be back next year, lets hope we can consolidate our position amongst the best counties in the country!