Saturday 21st July saw the Oxfordshire 9U mixed team take part in the final junior County Cup event of 2012.
It was the first county cup experience for Jana, Chloe, Lucia, Lara, Luke and Will, and the players were all excited and ready to play when we arrived at Legends UK in Haileybury, Hertfordshire.
And for once at county cup, the sun was shining!
After a great team-warm up supervised by captains Amanda and Olly the team first faced Essex, who won this 9U group in 201.
Essex once again fielded a very strong team, and despite some great efforts from the Oxfordshire team Essex won all of the rubbers.
We then moved straight into another tough match, against Hertfordshire. Once again the Oxfordshire team fought well, but weren’t able to win a rubber.
At least the sun was still shining!
Our penultimate match of the day was against Buckinghamshire, and Luke got the match off to a good start with a 7-4, 8-6 win at number 1. Jana also picked up a win in the first girls singles, coming back to win in three tiebreaks after losing the first tiebreak, 5-7, 7-5, 7-1.
Lara pushed her opponent all the way, but unfortunately missed out on the win losing 7-5, 5-7, 5-7.
Luke then teamed up with Will to put another win on the scoreboard with victory in the boys doubles, 7-4, 7-4.
Overall the Oxfordshire team lost 6-3 to Buckinghamshire.
Our final match of the day was against Berkshire, who like the Oxfordshire team were yet to win a match.
The boys got us off to a good start, with Luke and Will both winning their singles matches. The girls then took the court, with Jana, Chloe and Lucia all winning their matches (this included an amazing fight back from Jana after she lost the first tiebreak 7-0 and then went on to win!)
These victories in the Singles guaranteed the match win for Oxfordshire, but we finished off in style with Luke and Will winning the boys doubles and Lara and Lucia finishing the day with a win in the girls doubles.
The team captains were really impressed with both the Tennis and the effort shown by all the Oxfordshire players, and would like to thank them all for committing to their training and representing Oxfordshire at this level.
Thanks also to the parents for their support, and the referee of our event, Simon, who did a fantastic job in getting 90 matches played on four courts before 5pm!