Arriving at this year's 040 County Championships we knew it was going to be a tough weekend as it was for many counties in this age group. A sweltering indoor temp of 30 degrees on Saturday added to the challenge.

Saturday is mixed day and first up saw Cambridgeshire with Stuart Farrar & Natalie Ackland too strong for their inexperienced opponents winning 6-2,6-3 and likewise for Gabriel Carrillo-Ureta and Kerry Quirk also easing to a 6-3,6-4 win to get us off to a confident start. 

Next up was top seeds Essex the eventual runners up to Yorkshire with Natalie and Gabriel joining in a new pairing against a side with many top 20 UK ranked players and so picking up a few games with 30/30 scores and deuces was a creditable effort and a good warm up for Berkshire who we were targeting for a win. Ines Beeson a county stalwart played with newcomer Sam Edwards. They played as well as they could but the gap in experience was understandable suffice to say all the games won were well earned.

So, onto Berkshire who we had beaten in the mixed 050’s counties before. Stuart and Natalie started a little cold against a recently engaged pair who managed to break us once for a 6-4 lead with some aggressive volleying and smashing. We pushed them to a 2nd set tie break going down 7-5 after which we felt we should have done better. 

Kerry & Gabriel pairing up again had plenty of chances in the first set getting to 6-4 and again in the 2nd 6-3 with just the odd point in a few games making the difference.

Last match late on Saturday afternoon was a mens match V the Channel Islands, one of top UK teams and with Shaun & Stuart giving away to many years winning several games was the best they could do. Sam Richardson in only his 2nd county match and Gabriel faced the same challenge with a similar score.

Sunday saw the men at Surge and the women at Rocket for a 9 am start. Up against previous winners Essex and Sussex the men notched up several games but not enough to threaten any sets against much younger opponents. 

So, the very early start on Sunday saw a Somerset women’s pairing of Natalie and Ines take on the mighty serial winners of Yorkshire. They can be very proud of a 6-4, 6-3 defeat against two 050 GB Padel players which warranted a remark from Sally Fisher the GB Captain on the quality of Somersets play. Natalie said “We pushed them and made them work hard. It was a very tight first set. Some excellent rallies which drew in the crowds.” 

Kerry Quirk the Women’s Captain then paired up with Natalie Lawrence, making her county debut. It was a good experience for Kerry & Natalie to see the styles of play that the top players use whilst also acting as a very good warm up for Berkshire.

With the men finishing early we dashed across to support the women against Berkshire.

As they went straight back on against Berkshire the previous match helped the team to hit the ground running. So, with Kerry back with Natalie Ackland and still warm they got off to a promising start but with Berkshire getting stronger at the net the first set went to them 7-6. After they pulled back a set 6-3 so it was going to be down to yet another tie break to 10 and with the scores reaching 10 each the last two points went to … Berkshire.

But hang on!. With Ines confidence sky high after the compliment from Yorkshire and Natalie Lawrence improving rapidly this newly formed pair saw both players raising their levels with exciting patterns of play to win 6-3,3-6,10-3 so helping get our tie break record back on track.

So, a super tie break shoot-out saw Natalie and Ines combine and some solid low risk padel saw them smash it 10-5 to secure an amazing win for the county.

After a small break it was a surprise to see the Channel Islands in our group with Yorkshire the top seeded team when the CI have won previous age group county championships.

So, staying with Natalie & Kerry, they found themselves up against two experienced players who had made the semi-final of the mixed losing very narrowly to winners Yorkshire. Now playing at their peak they swept aside the CI pair 6-2,6-2. Ines & Natalie Lawrence were now gelling together as a new pairing using some great patterns of play but a more experienced pairing from the CI just carried them over the line 5-7,3-6. 

So, with the match level it was shoot out time again. With one shoot-out victory already Natalie and Ines were feeling confident. With an increasing number of supporters watching a solid start saw us 7-5 up and then a little slip saw us 8-9 down with the CI gaining the net more. We then kept our nerve to win 12-10 to claim an even bigger victory than the Berkshire win. It has been commented by me in previous reports that we need to do better in shoot outs and boy did we do just that.

It was our best performance against a top padel playing county just pipping our shoot out defeat to Sussex last year.

So, with tired bodies but smiling faces the players were already making plans on how they were going to relax on Sunday afternoon. 

But hang on…. Somerset were now in the hat for best placed runner up to go through to play Yorkshire in the semi - Final! Ines was already in the car dreaming of her hot bath when i messaged her to say hang on can you turn back! The count back was taking a while and players were left wondering whether to change into fresh kit or casual clothes. The count back eventually saw Surrey go through but to be in the same hat as them and top padel county Gloucestershire was dizzy heights indeed. I said after the Open age County weekend that our next challenge was to finish runner up in a group and we achieved that for which i am immensely proud of our county women.

The County women will benefit further from the Premier League I Padel team i have set up to give them more regular competition against the best players in the South West and Wales.

We will now set a new target of winning a group which given we have fewer courts than any other county would be a remarkable achievement.

Once again, a massive thank-you to all the players and supporters that helped Somerset Padel once again break new ground. 

Stuart
Somerset Captain & Coach