9U County Cup Report
9U Girls County Cup Report
The girls’ team of Daisy Rodgers, Allegra Young, Yingnan Ho, Lavanya Gupta and Amira Sulyman who came in as a late replacement for Sarah Wu who was sick and unable to play travelled to Grantham to take on the counties of Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Northants.
The team arrived in good spirits on Daisy’s birthday with everyone wanting to play each match and really up for the fight in true Cambs tradition. The format was to play 4 singles matches and two doubles and if the match score was 3 rubbers each then a tiebreak shoot out to 10 points would decide the overall winner of that match. All matches were one FAST4 set (although our matches were fast other counties had real battles!).
The players played in the reverse order with numbers 4 and 3 starting and then numbers 2 and 1 and then the doubles.
First up were the home County of Lincolnshire. Yingnan who is just recovering from a foot injury, and Lavanya got the team off to a great start with Lavanya winning very comfortably beating Alice Bengani 4/0. Yingnan had a tougher match but came through 4/2 against Phoebe Dickinson. Allegra playing at number two had a dominant display against Esme Calvert winning 4/0 and then birthday girl Daisy beat their number one Juliette Kin 4/1 to give the team a winning 4/0 lead after the singles. Amira stepped in to play the doubles and paired with Lavanya to win 4/0 and the match was completed by some hard hitting from Daisy and Allegra to win 4/0. Overall the team played very well – consistently and moving their opponents around and having more pace on their shots than their opponents.
As we had 5 counties in this group we had a rest round which lasted about 3 hours – the other matches were very close with a couple going to tie break shoot outs!
When we did resume at 1.50 the girls played Leicestershire and Amira came in for her debut singles at number four (after a quick lesson on scoring!) and she played very well to beat Kiera Farmer 4/0. Lavanya with her aggressive play beat Ella Freestone 4/0 and then Allegra beat Holly Shield 4/0 and Daisy beat Inez Balat 4/0 to again give the team a great win after the singles. Yingnan and Allegra paired up for the doubles and had a tough match but came through 4/2 before the top pairing of Daisy and Allegra won 4/0. Great team effort and another 6/0 match win.
In the next round Cambs took on Nottinghamshire and were expecting quite a hard match but the team came out very determined and had a resounding victory winning all their matches 4/0. Lavanya beat Yehale Weerasinghe 4/0, Yingnan beat Yenali Rodrigo 4/0, Allegra beat Annabel Davey 4/0, Daisy beat Faye Bryning 4/0 and then Amira and Lavanya won their doubles 4/0 as did Daisy and Allegra – a clean sweep.
The last match of the day was against Northants with a win meaning the girls would get to the finals in Nottingham on Saturday 20th April. They did not disappoint with Lavanya getting the team off to a good start beating Ellie Adams 4/0 again with some hard-hitting tennis. Yingnan who has been recovering from a bad foot came through in a tougher match 4/2 against Kamilah Djida and then Allegra dominated against Olivia Samoila 4/0 before Daisy finished off with a 4/0 win against Grace Balneaves. The final doubles saw Lavanya and Amira win 4/1 and Daisy and Allegra win 4/1.
All the girls played with great pride for the County all day and had lots of fun and after winning all their matches deserved to reach the North Finals in Nottingham on Saturday 20th April.
Well done to you all and thanks to the parents for all their support. Come on Cambs!
Sue Rich, Captain
