Cambs Girls Finish 2nd in County Cup

The format consisted of 3 singles and 1 doubles and Cambs played Essex in their 1st match.  Essex, who undoubtedly had the strongest team on paper, certainly played up to their billing and  they soon went in to a 2-0 match lead. Lizzie Pam, playing at number 1 found herself in a match tiebreak against Erica Izatt and had two match points but eventually lost 10-12 in the tiebreak. That meant Essex had a 3-0 lead that couldn’t be caught. Abby Hanson and Anna Traherne lost the doubles which meant Essex won the tie 4-0.

Our next match was against Suffolk and Anna Traherne got Cambs off to a great start with a 4-2, 4-0 win against Kiara Hammond. Lauren Watson-Steele came from 0-3 in the 1st set to beat Nia Braidford 5-3, 4-2. Lizzie Pam lost to Suffolk’s number one 0-4, 3-5 to make the final score 2-1 with the doubles to play. Pam and Watson-Steele teamed up to win the doubles 4-2, 4-0 to win the match 3-1.

Going in to Sunday’s matches, our 1st match was against Norfolk and a win was vital as it looked like Norfolk, Bedfordshire and Cambs all had a chance of finishing runner’s up.

Abby Hanson played number 3 and won a match tiebreak 10-5 after coming back from a set down to give Cambs the lead. Lauren Watson-Steel beat Talitha Rowan easily 4-2, 4-0 and it was down to Lizzie Pam to win the final singles match to win the tie. She won a close encounter 4-2, 5-4 (4). Lizzie and Lauren teamed up again in the doubles and came from a 0-4 1st set loss to win on a match tiebreak 10-4 to win the tie 4-0.

Our last match was against Bedfordshire. Essex had won the group and hadn’t lost a match yet and so it was between us and Beds who finished runner’s up. Traherne lost a match tiebreak 8-10 to put Beds in the lead, but Watson-Steel came back from a set down to win yet another match tiebreak for Cambs 10-6 which meant it was one match apiece going in to the final singles match. Lizze was up against Imogen Magner and won 4-1, 4-2  to put us ahead 2-1 with the doubles to play.

Hanson and Traherne lost the doubles 1-4,2-4 which meant it was down to a tiebreak shootout. It was down to Pam and Watson-Steele to win the tiebreak and they won convincingly 10-2.

Captain Chris Johnson said “It was a good team effort from every player over the weekend. It’s a long day of tennis if you play every singles and doubles and so everyone played their part to finish runner’s up to a very very good Essex team”.