On Saturday 28th February, the U9 girls county cup team of Jasmine, Eva, Emily, and Nihinsha took on Suffolk, Bedfordshire, a Cambridge at Easton Tennis Centre.
A strong start by the girls saw them race to a 3-1 lead after the singles against Suffolk, dominating performances by Jasmine and Nihinsha to win 4-0 in their sets. This was followed up with some excellent doubles to win the tie 5-1.
Against Bedfordshire all four girls remained focussed to overcome some tricky matches and move into the doubles 4-0 up already. A change in doubles pairings sealed the deal and a 6-0 win with Eva hardly giving a point away across both singles and doubles matches.
The final was against Cambridgeshire, this was to decide who would make the national finals in a few weeks time. Some desperately close singles matches from Nihinsha, Eva and Jasmine did not go our way. All three losing out on multiple sudden death deuce points. Emily provided some hope of rescuing the tie with a solid 4-0 win.
In the doubles Emily and Nihinsha won a tight tie break to win 4-3. Emily having won 6/6 for the team watched eagerly as Jasmine and Eva went close in their doubles. But it was not to be for the girls. A 4-2 win for Cambridge in the doubles sealed a 4-2 in the match overall.
A great effort from our girls 🙌🏻
On Sunday 1st March the boys competed against the same counties as the girls at Easton Tennis Centre. Zac, George, Rufus and Joey were our representatives for the team.
Opening with Suffolk, we knew we had possibly the toughest opponents of the day first, but were hopeful of an upset. Rufus got us off the mark with a win in his singles, Joey, George and then Zac all competing hard but we ended the singles 1-3 down. An energetic win for Joey and George in the doubles meant a nervy final few minutes in the second match. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be and Suffolk claimed the win they hoped for.
Against Bedfordshire all four boys stepped up to dictate large portions of their singles and doubles matches. The scorelines reflected how well our boys played, but not how hard their opponents had worked to take many games to the dreaded sudden death deuce! Each match went our way and we ended the tie 6-0 as the girls had on the Saturday.
The final match of the day was against Cambridge.We knew this would be the tightest match of the day and it didn’t disappoint! Both Joey and Rufus lost 3-4 in tie breaks which left us hoping for at least one singles win in the remaining matches. George duly delivered that win, cool, calm and full of fist pumps! 3-1 to Cambs.Going into the doubles we knew we needed both to take the match to draw and secure 2nd place in the event. Some ‘interesting’ matches then took place. Zac and Rufus going 3-0 up before being pegged back to 3-2, but settled the nerves to win 4-2. George and Joey pushed captains Chris’ heart rate to the max. Starting off by going 0-3 DOWN! 😳 They battled back to 3-3 and won the tie break by two clear points 10-8.
The boys went on to lose an incredibly close ‘shoot out’ match with Cambs and ended the day in 3rd place.
As captain I want to thank all the players and parents for their support over the weekend. It was fun to be on court and help each player through the ups and downs during matches.
Report: Chris Stocker, Norfok Tennis Performance Officer