Team :
Boys – Phillip Peters, Christopher Wood, James Defusto, Andrew Higham.
Girls – Rebecca Wood, Nina Luiggi, Shanice Dunk, Ellie Horton.
With our top four girls, and top three boys unavailable in Division 1 we knew this would be a tough day. The first County we played was Warwickshire. Phillip played well but went down to Oliver Plaskett 1-4, 4-5. Chris played very solid tennis against David Taylor winning 4-2,4-1. James played well in a tight match but lost to Nick Mercer, Andrew had a good win 4-1, 4-2 against Michael Pandya, giving the boys a draw at 2-2.
Rebecca played well but went down 1-4, 4-5 to Holly Reid, Nina played some very positive tennis winning easily 4-1,4-0. Shanice had the closest match against Ellie Hanna, she won the first set 5-3, lost the set tie-break in the second set, and the sadly lost the match tie-break 9-11. Ellie had a tough match against Emily Smith loosing 0-4, 3-5. This result gave Warwickshire the 3-1 win.
The second round was against Yorkshire having watched the team play Leicestershire I know this was a tough round. Phillip lost 1-4, 4-5 to Luke Johnson, Phillip played well but could not keep up with the continuous weight of shot. Chris lost his match 1-4, 0-4, with James also loosing 0-4, 0-4, as did Andrew 1-4,1-4.
The girls also had a tough round, Rebecca losing 0-4,2-4, and Nina losing to Katie Jessop. Shanice played well in the first set winning it 4-1, in the second set it started well but much closer rallys, she lost the set tie-break 2-7, and then the match tie-break unfortunately went to Yorkshire 10-4. However, Ellie Horton got our only victory with a 4-0, 4-1 win . Overall Yorkshire won 7-1.
In the final round against Leicestershire the girls ended 2-2. Rebecca Lost to Helen Thorpe 1-4,1-4, Nina had another good win against Corinne Blythe 4-2,4-5 10-7, this was the first time she had beaten Corinne. Shanice had a close match but went down 2-4, 3-5 and Ellie had a 4-0,4-0 win against Victoria Amos.
The boys also ended the round at 2-2. Phillip beat Ben Minski 4-1,4-1, Chris won 4-2,4-2 against Ben Morgan, but James had a tough time against Vivay Bhawser which he lost 4-0,0-4, 5-10. Andrew had the longest match of the day against Ross Parker which he lost in the tie-break.
The match was played with great team spirit with both teams supporting each other.
Jane Stokes