14 & Under Girls County cup this year took place at Boston Tennis Club. While it’s nice to have a home venue, for the extra support each day, it did take away a bit of the ‘County Cup team spirit’ because the players travelled every day instead of staying overnight.
Team selection was difficult so I decided to take 6 players and try to give them all as much tennis throughout the weekend as possible.
The team was; Rose Battey, Lucy Evans, Alice Gamman, Angela Halton, Lucy Hull (last season at 14U) and Paris Wright.
The first day we played Kent and we went down 6-0 although there were some decent performances against a team whose lowest rated players equalled our highest!
Lucy Hull at 1 Angela at 2 Lucy Evans at 3 And Rose Battey at 4.
Angela and Lucy Evans 1st pair (Resting Lucy Hull in the doubles)
Paris and Alice played 2nd pair.
Kent proved to be the strongest team and went on to qualify from the group as champions.
Day 2 was Gloucestershire
1 Lucy H 2 Angela 3 Paris 4 Alice
Alice put up some resistance in her second set but went down in the end. Angela was the bright light in the singles winning her match and keeping the tie alive.
Angela continued her good form and teamed up with Lucy H to win at 1st pair doubles. However Lucy E and Rose went down to a strong second pair.
A 4-2 loss but encouraging.
Day 3 was Beds.
They too had lost both their matches so far. So this was our ‘Cup Final’!
1 Lucy H 2 Angela 3 Rose 4 Alice
Lucy Hull had a very competitive match against a strong No1 but came out 2nd best.
Angela, Rose and Alice then put us in a strong position winning at 2,3 and 4!
3-1 up going into the doubles.
Lucy H and Angela had a tough pair of opponents and went down in straight sets. This made it all very tense. We really wanted to avoid the lottery of the tie break shoot out.
Lucy E and Paris won a great 1st set tiebreak under a lot of pressure then went on to win the 2nd 6-4.
So 3rd out of 4.
Not too bad considering we have a young team (3 of girls are 12U age group) and have a couple more years to improve.
Well done girls!!
David Williams
14U Girls County Cup Team Manager