The Northumberland Ladies' County Tennis Team were again victorious last weekend (November 28-30) in the Aegon Winter County Cup.
The ladies travelled to Wrexham to compete in the annual team competition and victory meant they missed 2 trains back to the North East because the event went right down to the wire! This continues a fine run of results for the team following an unbeaten spell since summer 2013 and sees them climb up to National group 2 for the winter event.
The team played 9 matches each day, 6 singles and 3 doubles. After a weak start on the first day losing to Essex 7-2, the team then went on to beat Cheshire 6-3 on day two and Hampshire/Isle of Wight 8-1 on day three. What an exciting weekend it was. At the start of Sunday, Essex had 12 rubbers & 2 wins, Cheshire had 10 rubbers & 1 win & we had 8 rubbers & 1 win. Margaret Barron, who is the team manager spent a sleepless night doing sums & eventually worked out that the only way the team could win was by beating Hampshire 8-1 or 9-0 and for Cheshire to beat Essex 6-3!! It came down to the last doubles when Cheshire were 5-3 up & they were in a championship tie-break. It seemed to go on for ever but eventually Cheshire pulled it off & so we won. This meant the Northumberland team topped their group and gained promotion!
Margaret Baron was thrilled with the victory,
"44 counties take part in the Aegon County Cup events and I am delighted that Northumberland are into group 2 of the nationally held event. We have a very strong squad which has not only gained this winters promotion, but follows on from promotion in summer 2013, winter 2013 and summer 2014. This is a remarkable achievement for a relatively young team and I look forward to future success".
The team consisted of Alex Walker, Deborah Armstrong, Grace Dixon, Amy Hoburn, Emma Wilson, Ceara Howey, Stephanie Booth and Abigail Lemberger (not in photo).
Aegon County Cup events give players the opportunity to represent their County in team competition in national/regional stages. The age group categories range from 9U to 35+.
Events are held at different times of the year and in order to compete players have to be selected by their County.
In the Summer, Winter and 18U Events, the 44 competing counties are organised into groups according to their performance in the previous year’s event.
Team composition and match formats vary from event to event with singles matches qualifying for rating wins and ranking points.