We took away 5 players Sophia, Freya, Maya, Tobechi and Lena, with Shauna non-travelling reserve. The Team Captains were Sarah Rutherford and Lottie Howard. Throughout the three days, all the girls gave their all and when not on the court were excellent at supporting their fellow teammates.
Friday – Day 1 v Essex and Kent
It was a very hot and turned out to be a long day. We started off playing the first of our box matches v Essex and this we won 4 – 2 with Sophia, Freya and Tobechi all winning their singles, Tobechi in the 10pt match tiebreak 10-6. Tobechi then teamed up with Lena in the doubles and unfortunately lost 8 – 10 in the 10 pt tiebreak, but Sophia and Freya won their doubles on a 10 pt tiebreak which gave us the win overall. This was going to be a theme for the three days all the matches were extremely close, quite often going down to the 10pt tiebreak.
Due to the weather forecast getting worse as the weekend went on, we had to complete our next rubber against Kent. After the singles it was 2 – 2, Tobechi lost 6 – 10 and Freya won in a huge battle 11 – 9 in the 10pt tiebreaks. In hindsight, we should have stopped at this point as the girls were all tired having started at 9.30am and we were not going finish till 8pm!! Sophia and Freya lost, Tobechi and Lena won again in the 10pt tiebreak 10 – 7. S o, at 3 matches all we had to go to a final 10 pt shootout, this we lost, but the girls were totally exhausted. The frustrating thing was that Kent went through from our close box to make the final against Surrey.
Saturday – Day 2 v South Wales
After the long day yesterday, we decided to rest Maya from the singles and use her for the doubles and let Lena have a singles match. After the singles we were 1 – 3 down with Sophia winning and Tobechi losing on a 10 pt tiebreak, so we needed to win both doubles to take it to a shootout. We mixed up the pairings playing Freya and Tobechi at two and Sophia and Maya at one. Sophia and Maya did really well and won in a 10 pt tiebreak 10 -2 to take it to 2 – 3 overall but, unfortunately, Freya and Tobechi couldn’t manage to get a win despite their best efforts so we lost overall 2 – 4.
Sunday – Day 3 v Middlesex
Due to our box being so close, the computer worked out that we had ended up 3rd so would be playing Middlesex for 5th / 6th place. The girls seemed less tired so we went back to the normal singles Sophia, Freya, Maya and Tobechi. Sophia won, Freya lost, Maya lost in a close 10pt tiebreak 6 – 10 and Tobechi lost in an epic marathon 10pt tiebreak 10 – 12, so after the singles we were 1 – 3 down. In the doubles, Sophia and Maya played first pair and got a good win to take it to 2 – 3 then Freya and Lena got a great win 10 – 8 in the 10pt tiebreak, which meant we were tied at 3 matches all, so we went into to a 10pt shootout. Sophia and Freya teamed up and came away with the win, which gave us the win over Middlesex, so a great way to finish off the weekend.
Sarah Rutherford – 11 Girls County Captain
