Following the successful 8U County Cup pilot events in 2022, this event was added to the County Cup Calendar and we hosted this year’s event at David Lloyd Southampton on Sunday 23rd April.
The purpose of the event is that it is a FUN event and a learning experience for players, parents and coaches and is aimed at giving all concerned an introduction to County Cup. The preference is that it is for players that have not previously competed in a County Cup event.
The other counties in the Group G were Dorset, South Wales and Wiltshire.
The Teams were:
Girls: Alice Farthing, Liliana Mawo, Roxanna Paul, Ester Wycherley
Boys: Felix Ambroze, Harry Coxon, Adam Kaminski, Edward Wood
The Captains were: Sarah Rutherford, Ollie Barnes and Jack Ison
Format:
Each match consisted of 10 rubbers – 8 singles and 2 doubles, after the first round of singles rubbers, reverse singles rubbers followed and then the doubles.
Players played three rubbers per match.
Rubbers were the best of 1 match tie-break to 10 points
The single matches were all played first followed by the doubles
Jenny Sayer had kindly agreed to Referee the event.
It had been decided to run the girls and boys events at the same time with eight mini red courts being used so the day started with setting up the courts with players arriving at 11.30 am for a warm-up with playing starting at 12.30 pm.
During the County Training sessions and practices, the teams had worked hard playing singles and lots of doubles and also on communication and staying positive with each other.
1st match v Wiltshire
It was a great start to the day with the girls winning 10-0 whilst the boys won 6-4. Adam lost a close first match 10-12 and in the doubles Harry & Adam put up a good fight but just lost 9-11 and Felix and Edward lost 8-10.
2nd match v Dorset
For this match it was the boys who had a clean sweep and had a comfortable 10-0 win. The girls won 9-1 with Liliana losing her first doubles against the Dorset No 1.
3rd match v South Wales
We thought South Wales would have strong teams. Going into the doubles the boys had already won with 7 singles wins (Felix just missing out on 10-12 in his second match) and this was very fortunate as both doubles were lost – Harry & Adam 6-10 and Felix & Edward lost 10-12.
For the girls, they were 5-3 up after the singles so we need a doubles win for the match result. Liliana & Roxanna won quite easily 10-3 and Alice & Esther managed to win 10-8 so a great result!
So, for the second year, Hampshire & IOW Boys and Girls were winners!!
For the girls event Dorset were second, South Wales third and Wiltshire fourth and for the boys Wiltshire were second, South Wales third and Dorset fourth.
For most of the players, it was their first experience of a County Cup event and all thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Special mention to Roxanna who won all her matches.
We would like to say a huge thank you to all the Court Supervisors – Lana Benson, Harriet Burley, Hayden Cummings, Scarlett Doman, Ivana Maynard, Evie Pate, George Sanders, Daniel Rutorov, Leena Sunil, Jack Wicken, Scott Yates – who helped to make the event run so smoothly.
There were some fantastic matches and I was really pleased with all the attitudes of the players and how they applied themselves in some very tricky situations on the court. There were some really tough matches and the players had to dig deep at times and battle their way to victory. I couldn’t have asked more from the teams and their behaviour on and off-court and their effort throughout the day was great. The positive team spirit from the girls and boys was great to see and encouraging each other throughout the day.
Ollie Barnes – 8U County Captain
