Team – Georgia Lawson, Amber Smith, Amy Harrold-Vaux, Maria Cotton, Amber Williams and Emma Stewart.
With two of our top players Freya Christie and Livvy Tomkins playing elsewhere, and Frances Benson away on a school ski trip, it put a huge pressure on the girls who played for Notts, particularly as we had been seeded in our half of the draw.
It was a new format this year with teams playing in a group of six, the winning team going through to a National Final. The order of play was not to our advantage as we had to play Northumberland and Yorkshire on the first day.
The team playing Northumberland was Georgia Lawson, Amber Smith Amy Harrold –Vaux and Maria Cotton in the singles. Georgia played well taking her opponent to three sets, but loosing after a well fought match, Amy had a good match , playing well .but also lost 5-7,3-6. Amber and Maria played well but both matches slipped away. We did not play the doubles until the next day.
We then had to play Yorkshire, Georgia, Amber, Amber and Emma played the singles, but unfortunately we lost all four, although Georgia played very well against Lidia Burrows. The girls then had to play the doubles against Yorkshire, Georgia and Amy played well, but again we went down. We were the last Counties on court at 7-30pm, it being a long tough day.
On the second day this new strange order of play meant that Notts girls only had the doubles match against Northumberland that had not been completed on the first day. The girls were not on court for the match until 3-30pm, which we knew was a dead rubber. It was hard to keep the spirits up, I know they were all fed up waiting.
On the third day we were playing for 5th or 6th place, our opponents being Derbyshire, the girls were all great in supporting each other, but unfortunately we ended up 6th.
There was a great team spirit throughout the weekend, particularly as the boys were at the same venue, my thanks go to the parents who came to support, and to Rupert Lawson who kindly helped Dave and I transporting the players.
Jane Stokes