10U Boys County Cup Report

The Herefordshire & Worcestershire Boys County Team played Cheshire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire at Hoole Lawn Tennis Club on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th May 2024 at the annual County Cup.

Captain: Matt Tully

Boys Team: Andrew, Sam, Luca, Seb, William and Harry

Arrival:

The team arrived at 9:45am in good time to have a good warm up, hit some balls and prepare for their matches. Thank you to their parents as it was a long drive from our county!

After a briefing by the referee the matches got underway at 11am.

Round 1 v Cheshire:

Harry and Luca started the county cup with fixtures at 4 and 3 singles. Harry started brightly against a consistent opponent. Their points went on with many rallies over 10 shots going back and forth on the clay courts. Harry lost the first set 4-2 but kept on fighting forcing the second set to a tiebreak but he just couldn’t quite get through this one despite some impressive attacking returns and excellent defence in both corners. Luca faced a more attacking opponent who pinned him back deep on most points. Luca tried to find his attacking forehand as much as possible but couldn’t quite find his timing to capitalise on the games being close losing 4-1 4-1. Next up was Andrew at 1 and Sam at 2. They faced two more impressive highly ranked opponents. Andrew’s opponent seemed to be able to attack off everything and didn’t miss making it an extremely tricky match. Andrew tried to hit deeper but his opponent kept moving Andrew to win the match. Sam chased and chased the ball down, his opponent hit spin to both sides with ease and didn’t seem to miss. Sam did so well retrieving the ball and was out of breath for most of the match but continued showing great fight despite losing.

Andrew and Luca teamed up in doubles, showing some good volleying skills following some of our patterns that we worked on in training and remembering some of our rules of H&W doubles. They narrowly missed out losing 4-3 4-3 in two close sets. Seb and Will teamed up at number 2 doubles. They played aggressively, smart at time playing into the right areas of the court and managed to get H&W’s first win of the day 4-2 4-3. Well done boys. The Cheshire team was strong and something that we need to work towards closing the gap through continued practice.

Score: Cheshire win 5-1

Round 2 v Yorkshire

Seb and Will played singles and both fought really hard but lost 4-0 4-1 against their opponents. The Yorkshire boys were effective at creating spaces in the court against our players to open up the court and finish the point. Andrew and Sam played at 1 and 2 and faced similar battles against GB players who were relentless in their intensity, speed around the court and power.

After the singles it was time for doubles where William and Sam teamed up and Luca and Harry teamed up. These matches were closer and our tactics worked but both pairs couldn’t seem to win those big points on the day. Luca and Harry forced a tiebreak in the second set but Yorkshire came through 9-7 in a really close battle. Some really good performances from the boys but Yorkshire were too strong in this one. We did spend some time learning and analysing after the match what are things that they do in their game that we could improve and bring on and learned some important lessons to take forward for future events.

After the match it was time for the boys to go and enjoy themselves off court and fortunately the hotel had a swimming pool which they loved playing with each other before grabbing some food and preparing for the next day.

Score: Yorkshire Win 6-0

Round 3 v Derbyshire

Day 2 and the boys arrived early to warm up. Seb and Will were first up and came out aggressively knowing they wanted to win this one. Will used his attacking serves and forehands to hit through his opponent winning 4-1 4-0. Seb faced some close games in the first set with most of them going to sudden death deuce but he focused and won the first set 4-2 before loosening off in the second to play more attacking winning 4-1. Andrew and Sam were next and both boys didn’t waste any time on court with Andrew winning 4-0 4-0 and Sam winning 4-1 4-0. Really good from the boys in these singles finding some great tennis.

Doubles was next with Harry and Seb playing at number 2 winning 4-0 4-1 and Andrew and Luca playing at number 1 also winning 4-0 4-1. The boys gelled together well and started to really develop confidence playing some really great doubles.

Score: H&W Win 6-0

In short:

• 3rd Place
• Faced 2 really good sides, but kept fighting forcing some of the matches to be close.
• Great team spirt from both parents and players, we looked like we had the most fun there.
• The boys were keen to learn and learned a lot from watching and playing against some of the best players in the country.

Well done everyone!