The Surrey team of Taylor Papworth, Michael Mhangami, Harrison Brown, Guy Den Ouden, Clayton Van Rensbury (Ben Heynold will meet us at the venue on Saturday morning) left the NTC on Friday late afternoon to take the 2.5 hour trip to Bath to compete in the qualifying event for the boys Under 14 County Cup. Surrey were drawn in a Box A with Channel Islands and Dorset, the wining team would play the winner of Box B for a place at the national finals.
We arrived in good time so went straight to the venue for a practice before we headed off to the hotel for a quick bite to eat and bed, first up on Saturday morning will be the Channel Islands.
First up for Surrey was the 4th and 3rd players, we were very confident with Harrison playing at 3 and Clayton at 4 that we could get off to a winning start. Both boys played very well and for the loss of only 7 games Surrey were 2-0 up. With Guy and Ben playing at 2 and 1 we quickly doubled our lead, with the doubles to come we were 4-0 up. With the doubles pairing of Taylor and Ben playing as pair 1 and Michael and Guy at pair 2 Surrey were too strong for the Channel Island doubles pairs so after 6 matches Surrey had beaten Channel Islands 6-0, now the tougher task of playing Dorset awaited the team !!
For some reason that I am still seeking clarification we were scheduled to play the doubles first against Dorset followed by the 4 singles the following day. Josh and I decided the shuffle the pack and mixed our pairings up for the battle against Dorset. So with Ben and Guy playing as pair one and Michael and Harrison playing at pair two we felt we had two strong teams.
After 45 minutes Surrey we were set down in both matches by score of 6-3. After a quick pet-talk and a change of tactics both teams won the second set with Michael and Harrison storming to take the second set 6-1, Ben and Guy after going a break down rallied well to win the 2nd set 6-4, so both matches went into a 10 point tie-break to decide the outcome of the match. Both championship tie breaks were very tight and with no team taking a significant lead both went into the latter stages even. Ben and Guy were unlucky to lose their tie-breaker and match 10-8. Michael and Harrison held a match point but could not convert and were unlucky to lose 11-9. So after day one Surrey had beaten the Channel Islands 6-0 and were 2-0 down against Dorset with the 4 singles to come on Sunday.
It was grey dull and rain had been falling all night so the hard courts were out of play, so the match against Dorset had to be concluded on the Astro. Our position was simple, we had to win 3 of the 4 singles to force the rubber into a 10 point championship tie-break or win all 4 singles to win the tie out right, and anything less would mean a defeat.
Harrison got the team off to a flyer with fantastic win at 3, Clayton fought hard at 4 but was beaten. Guy played some fantastic tennis to win at 2. Ben was now deep into his match against the Dorset number one. After a high quality match the match went into a 3rd set 10-point tie-break, with both boys having chances to win it, Dorset sneaked past the finishing line 12-10 to win the tie 4-2. The Surrey team had fought hard but finished second in their group so on Sunday we would be playing for 3rd and 4th place.
The skies were now clear and bright so all matches started promptly at 9.30. Again, we shuffled the pack and change the order to give all boys the opportunity of playing singles in County Cup. With Michael at 3 and Taylor at 4 we got off to a great start against Gloucestershire and were soon 2-0 up, Harrison and Guy continued the good work and won their respective matches in straight sets to give us a 4-0 lead. With the doubles being split we had finished the under 14 County Cup qualification campaign in a disappointing 3rd. All 6 boys had given their all over the 3 days but we just came up a little bit short of our expectations.
I would like to thank Josh Miler on his first County Cup experience for all his help and support over the 3 days.
David Lovejoy
Surrey Boys Under 14 Team Manager