Firstly, I want to thank Mike Wisner for giving me the honour of looking after the team again. Interestingly the only player returning from last year’s team was me. However this marks a new era for the team, but with the strength and commitment of the young players Nottinghamshire will grow to be a strong team.
This year we were competing in Group 4a in Hull against North Wales, West of Scotland, and Northamptonshire. The team had two rookies, Donovan Cellupica-Towers and Dominic West, both of whom performed the traditional two minute speech with ease and vigour.
Day 1 we faced the same North Wales team we played in the summer, who always have a very solid team throughout. The day started very positively with Ben taking the first set quickly, and Dominic and Donovan in a battle on the other courts. Unfortunately all three matches took a turn for the worse with Ben losing in three sets, Dominic sadly lost two close sets, and Donovan was beaten by their experienced captain. In the next round of matches, North Wales showed their strength at the 1 and 3 positions with strong wins against Aaron and Pierre. Jamie took the lone singles win very comfortably at 2, putting us 5-1 down going into the doubles. Knowing every rubber matters all three pairs went out on the court to fight for every point. Jamie and Pierre lost in two close sets against probably the best pair at the tournament. Aaron and Dominic struggled against a more experienced pair at the 2 position, and Phil and I took a 12-10 win in the third set match tie-break, meaning we lost 7-2 overall on day 1.
Day 2 against West of Scotland started badly with all three courts losing the first set 6-4. Ben and Dominic struggled in the second set, whilst Donovan battled to take it to a third set. Meanwhile Pierre and Aaron had taken the first set, but Jamie was down a set. Our bench was very spirited at this point and getting louder and louder. Donovan took the win closely followed by a tough loss for Jamie. We were now 3 – 1 down and up on the last two singles. Pierre managed to pull off a big win with a second set tie-break, whilst Aaron had been forced into a third set. The level of tennis at the number 1 spot was very high, and the match went all the way to a third set tiebreak. At the same time Ben and Phil had gone on for their doubles match and played some very strong doubles to take the win easily. Aaron unfortunately lost the tiebreak 9-7 against David Brewer, who made top 10 in the world as a junior. Both remaining pairs (Jamie and Pierre, Aaron and I) struggled against their experienced top two pairs. Thus day 2 ended in a 6-3 loss, which meant we had to win on day 3 to avoid relegation.
Day 3 was against a Northamptonshire team that also had two losses so we were ready for a feisty relegation battle. All three players got off to a great start by winning the first set. The support from the bench was hugely important and the opposing team could feel the pressure put on them. Phil and Donovan came through with comfortable wins, and Dominic dealt with a late surge to gain his first win. We now only needed two rubbers to secure the win, which Jamie helped with by dispatching his opponent after a slow start. Pierre lost a close first set whilst Aaron managed to secure the first set against a strong number 1. Pierre was very unfortunate to lose the second set in a tiebreak which left us needing Aaron to win the second set to secure the victory. He raced ahead to a 5-0 lead only to see his opponent go on a 3 game comeback. Unsurprisingly we were starting to get nervous. Aaron squashed our worries by taking the next game to put us 5 – 1 up, so we took the win with no need to play the doubles.
Overall I am very happy with our performance. There were several matches that could have gone either way and with more experience we will steal a few more of those contests in the future. The team is still very young and will continue to develop over the next few years. I want to thank all of the players that came both to practice and the tournament. Your commitment to Nottinghamshire Tennis is greatly appreciated. On behalf of the team I would like to thank the county for their continued support on and off the court. Lastly in order to give ourselves the best opportunity to perform this summer and to keep the team together we will be holding a practice at least once a month starting in January.