Lincolnshire Boys Squad: Euan Baker, Greg Colclough, Matthew Gedney, Jake Holt, Otto Jawahir, Cavan Stephenson.
Venue: Woodford Wells Club, Essex
Teams: Essex, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Hampshire & IOW, Norfolk and Lincolnshire
Day one: We travelled down to Essex on Saturday morning as we had an unfortunate draw that saw us only playing doubles on the first day and meant that Sunday was going to be long and tough. Up first was Hampshire, Matthew and Greg teamed up together and started their match on fire with an early break, it looked as though they would be putting us into the lead, 5-3 and set point up their opponents had a very fortunate net cord and that seemed to turn the match on its head, quickly going 6-5 down we held to take it to a tie break but unfortunately we lost it and lost the 2nd set 6-1. Otto and Jake meanwhile also got off to a great start winning the first set, at almost the same time their match turned and we lost the 2nd set so it went to a 3rd set tie break which we won 10-8. Finally at around 8pm we had finished for the day at 1-1 and could go and check into our hotel.
Day two: When we arrived it was pouring with rain and our match got switched to artificial grass, we were all confident going on and felt each match was winnable for us, all the boys put up a great fight but we lost all four singles in very tight matches, Matthew and Otto both lost in 3rd set tie breaks and Euan and Jake both lost in 2 tight sets. We felt a bit down as it could have been so different, but that’s tennis and we picked ourselves up quickly as we had Norfolk next. We went 1 down as Cavan lost his match, Euan and Otto won comfortably to put us 2-1 up, Matthew was involved in a real battle at number 1 eventually coming out on top 11-9 in the 3rd set tie break, so we led 3-1 with the doubles to come. Because both pairs played so well the previous day we kept it the same, both matches were very tight and we managed to lose them both, with the match standing at 3-3 we headed for a shootout, because we had split our 1 and 2 in the doubles we could put them together, Matthew and Otto soon put our nerves at rest taking a 6-0 lead and closed it out in style to give us the win. It was the end of another long day, as we had arrived at 8.30am to warm up for the match against Hants and the tie break finished at 8.30pm against Norfolk!
Day three: The sun was shining down on the last day and the boys all played some great tennis but Suffolk were too strong for us and we were 3-0 down, Jake 3-6, 5-7, Euan 2-6, 3-6 and Otto 1-6, 3-6. Matthew had to win to keep us in it but after a great effort he finally lost 6-2 in the 3rd set. We were losing 4-0 and Suffolk didn’t want to play the doubles so the weekend was over.
Overall we finished 4th and as always I was delighted with our attitude, the boys had a great weekend, they all behaved impeccably and performed well each day and did Lincolnshire proud, a big positive is 4 of the players will be eligible for next year, we also have other good players coming through who can push for a place in next year’s team, we improved on last year’s performance and I am really looking forward to next year’s event.
I would like to thank Sam Bass for his assistance over the weekend, with him attending it means the boys get the best support possible with a coach on each court with them.
Terry Hunt 