The Under 8 County Cup this year was hosted by Avon and took place at David Lloyd Westbury in Bristol on Saturday 22nd April.

Somerset had three teams involved, two boys teams and 1 one girls team with the players representing Somerset shown below:

Isabella Watchel, Orla Woolen, Camilla Howkins, Charlotte Johnston, Carys Perry
Noah Fletcher, Laurence Foster, Rupert Smallwood, Finn Saunders, Joshua Godden
Joshua Williams, Max Benewith, Henry Deem, Maxim Buchard, Ianis Cluci

With Avon entering two boys and two girls teams as well, the format was slightly altered from the one we were expecting.  All of the boys teams played in one box and all of the girls teams playing in another box. This meant that the boys had five matches and the girls four matches. This format resulted in the players only playing one 10 point Champions tie break against their opposite number in the opposing team with no reverse singles (ie 1 v 2 or 3 v 4). Additionally, whilst the teams played some ‘friendly’ doubles at the end, these scores were not counted towards the overall match results.

There was a great atmosphere within the Somerset teams from the very start of the day and the attitude and effort shown by all the players throughout the day (whether they won or lost their matches) was fantastic to see. ‘Puff’ our new team mascot was a popular addition to the team and the players made sure he was very well taken care of during the day.

The majority of the matches played throughout the day were very competitive, with some extremely close scorelines, a couple of notable results were Rupert Smallwood against   Sebastian Curtis of Cornwall where he lost 20-18 and Finn Saunders result against Nico Lancaster of Devon that he won 14-12. Finn also had another close result beating Teddy Stapenhurst of Avon B, 12-10. The players all showed a lot of ‘fighting spirit’ and resilience.

Overall, the girls finished 2nd having drawn their match 2 – 2 against the overall winners Avon A in the round robin format. The boy’s event was incredible close, Avon A winning the event overall, however the 2nd , 3rd and 4th placed teams all finished on the same number of wins with Somerset Boys A ending up in 3rd on a count back on points. The Somerset Boys B finished 6th but benefited hugely from the experience of being able to play at the County Cup.

My thanks go to Jon Rolnik for his support at the event and in the lead up to the County Cup and to Will Harris, one of our young players from the Avenue TC who assisted with the scoring for the event on the day. We would also like to extend our thanks to the parents and other family members who supported the event on the day and who support their children’s tennis throughout the year enabling them to train and compete year around. Without their support none of this would be possible.

In Summary, we came away from the event very pleased and proud of the way the teams competed, and in the manner they conducted themselves on and off court.  We hope that the individual players had fun and are proud of their own efforts too and will be able to look back on the event with fond memories and as a very positive introduction to the County Cup.

Tim Seymour
Lead Coach – Somerset Under 8s.