The Hampshire & IOW 9U teams delivered a strong performance at the County Cup, showing great determination and teamwork throughout.
Team Captains: Isla Hignett and Joao Costa
The girls’ team was: Michaela Georgieva, Georgia Harris, Serena Mawo, Natalia Maria Oprea
The first match was against Berkshire and after the singles it was 2-2 so everything to play for. Serena and Natalia won at doubles 1 and Berkshire won doubles 2, so it was match shoot-out time! The girls played great and we won!
The next match was against Dorset and the girls won 3 of the singles and 1 doubles so a 5-1 win.
The final match was again a strong Wiltshire team who had won their previous two matches. The girls showed similar resilience recovering from 1-3 down to take the match to a shoot-out. Georgia won her singles at 4 and Serena / Natalie and Michaela / Georgia played brilliantly to take both doubles. In the shoot-out we narrowly lost 6-10 resulting in them finishing second overall.
The boys’ team was: Ashton Griffiths, William Lord, Joseph Radford, Yusuf Ragheb, Momin Sanaullah
The first match was against a strong Berkshire team and only William got a win at singles 3, so we lost 1-5. Up next were Dorset and again we were only able to win one singles (Joseph at 2) so another 1-5 loss. Many of the matches were closely contested and the team spirit was still high.
The final match was against Wiltshire and after the singles we were 3-1 up. Ashton and Momin played a great doubles match losing 3-7 in the tiebreak and Joseph and Yusuf played at doubles 1, but were out-played by the Wiltshire pair. This meant it was 3-3 so another match shoot-out! This time we won so the boys finished third.
All players represented Hampshire with pride, and supported one another throughout. A very encouraging day with lots of valuable match experience gained.
It was a great first experience of competing in a Junior County Cup event for: Michaela, Georgia, Natalie, Ashton, William, Joseph, Momin.
Isla Hignett – Team Captain
