The ladies representing 40 counties descended upon Eastbourne for another beautiful weekend in the glorious sunshine that saw fantastic tennis, lots of familiar friendly faces and the development of impressive tan lines! Owing to the ongoing redevelopment of Devonshire Park the format once again was reduced from 5 rubbers down to 3 with counties playing either the morning or the afternoon session.
Team
Caroline Milns
Aldona Greenwood
Lisa Knowles
Jackie Thompson
Maia Dunn (captain).
Day 1 – Nottinghamshire vs Hereford & Worcester
Aldona Greenwood opened play at no2 singles putting up a huge fight. She came out on top with a fantastic 6-3, 6-3 win which put us in the lead on the first day.
Caroline Milns and Jackie Thompson teamed up for the doubles against two solid players, one particularly enjoying putting some pace on the ball. It was a close second set, but overall saw a loss of 6-1, 6-4.
Going on for the deciding match, the pressure was on for Notts and H&W. Maia Dunn came up against Katie Miles for a long and close match in the heat. Sadly it was Katie who came out on top in the match tie break. 6-4, 4-6 [10-6].
Nottinghamshire lost 2-1
Day 2 – Nottinghamshire vs Buckinghamshire
With our narrow loss yesterday, today was the day we were hoping to do better.
Caroline opened play at no2 singles and despite playing great tennis, the opposition held on to win 6-4, 6-2.
Lisa Knowles and Jackie partnered one another but saw a similar score.
Going in to play the final singles 0-2 down, Maia played Sophie Bell for a good match but unfortunately it ended with the third loss of the day.
Nottinghamshire lost 3-0
Day 3 – Nottinghamshire vs North of Scotland
The final day was expected to be the toughtest of all as North of Scotland had already won over the previous 2 days. However, going in, we were there to fight to stay in the division.
Aldona came back to start us off at no2 singles and despite a good match, sadly the opposition was too strong. At the time of writing, it turns out Aldona was playing on a foot injury unbeknown to her and is currently in a boot recovering! It is amazing how she managed to even continue playing the match!
Lisa and Caroline came on and won the most games out of all us that day. It was a close match but the opponents fought well and came out on top 6-4, 6-3
For the final match of the weekend, Maia came up against the incredibly tricky, lefty, GB captain, Eilidh Smith who was simply too talented and only dropped a game. But that one game was a welcome achievement!
Nottinghamshire lost 3-0
The Nottinghamshire ladies gave it their best, for which I am extremely grateful. Sadly it wasn’t meant to be for us this year with such strength from the other counties. We shall start in Division 5 where we will have new players qualifying to join our team so we will be back to fight in 2019. Thank you for all your support, enthusiasm and effort once again.
Maia Dunn