County Cup report 2010 U18 Boys

Dates: 19-21st Feb
Venue: Bath University
Division: 1 Surrey, Middlesex, Lancashire and Kent
Team: Joe Salisbury, Alex Wilton, Eamon Soulsby, Jordan Bull, Stefan Sterland-Markovic, Theo Voegt, Adam Skalsky, Will Juggins and Joel Parish.
Team Manager/Captain: Justin Sherring
Team Coach: James Smith

Players unavailable: Tom Farqharson, Tom Allen and Jack Carpenter all top 100 ITF

Day 1 vs Middx

The first blow to us on the first day was that we would be without our no.3 ranked player Eamon Soulsby, who was winning many more matches than he expected at the Tier 1 British Tour event in Corby. This meant that our line-up against a very strong Middx team was sufficiently impaired to the extent that every member of the team had uphill battles.

Adam Skalsky and Thoe Voegt were sent out to open proceedings and it became clear fairly quickly that they were having a little trouble settling. Opening sets went against Surrey and it was looking like the forced process of having to rearrange the team, in light of Eamons’ absence, was going to hit us a little too hard. Both singles were lost soon thereafter and it was time for Jordan Bull and Stefan Sterland Markovic to attempt to even things up for us. Jordan struggled to cope with the consistency of Middlesex’s Zack Evenden but Stefan produced a very confident performance to earn us our first rubber of the tie. Having lost the first set, Stefan destroyed Sizya Kivanda 6-3, 6-0 by playing some superb serve and volleying and overall net rushing. Surrey were 1-3 down with Joe Salisbury up against top GB and former Surrey player Oliver Golding;  Alex Wilton, fresh from his win at the Dubai ITF the previous week,  up against Artiom Kolpakov who was two ratings higher than the Surrey player.

The form book had nothing to worry about as Middx won both opening sets but Joe started to play the type of tennis that had the ITF world ranked 33 player struggling for rhythm from the baseline and Alex was into a second set tie break. Despite a valiant effort, Alex went down 5-7, 6-7 and Joe having won the second set, faded in the decider. We were 1-5 after the singles and therefore game over.

 
The doubles proved to be a far closer encounter with Middx narrowly edging the rubbers 1-2. The final score of 2-7 to Middlesex was a fair reflection of a full strength team up against a battling but weakened outfit.

 
Day 2 v Kent

With Eamon Soulsby back from the Corby British Tour, we felt that beating Kent, who had beaten the reigning champions Lancashire the day before, was a doable task.
We changed our opening singles line up to bring in experienced County Cup player Will Juggins at 6 and with Stefan dropping down the order at 5, we were confident that we had put out a strong pair of boys to get us off to a great start.

Stefan did not let us down and took just over an hour to dismantle Luke Bateup 6-1, 6-0 in a fantastic display of pressure tennis. Some players only come to the net to shake hands but Sterland – Markovic is a permanent ‘asker of questions’ as he rushes in at every possible opportunity. Juggins meanwhile was having a full blown rumble with Kent’s James Wilson and was at 3-3 in the third set when he was unfortunately broken. Having worked so hard to try and give Surrey a 2-0 lead it was tough on Will to finally go down 3-6 in the third set and therefore share the opening singles’ spoils.

Eamon Soulsby and Jordan Bull were charged up and ready to go for Surrey at 3 and 4 singles. Soulsby had lost to his opponent two months earlier but was in no mood to allow previous experiences to spoil his day and he destroyed Michael Suleau 6-3, 6-0 with a great display of consistency and counter-attacking. Bull was finding his opponent, Lewis Sargeant, a tricky customer and couldn’t quite find enough consistency to overcome the Kent youngster and he was defeated 4-6, 5-7. 2-2 and all to play for.

Alex Wilton was next up against Lewis Whiteley and was unable to stop the Kent powerhouse from dominating the points from the start. Perhaps the efforts of the previous week, in Dubai and an overnight flight two days previously, had just caught up with the Surrey teenager. Whiteley ran out a 3-6, 0-6 winner. The pressure was now on Joe Salisbury who, due to a back injury, hadn’t played a competitive match for six weeks prior to coming to County Cup; he was up against Lewis Burton the 2009 National U18 runner-up and top 200 ITF junior.

Joe’s tactics of taking the net away from Lewis and keeping the points short worked well and after splitting the opening two sets, the two 1992 boys found themselves in a war of attrition! Serving at 5-5 in the third set however, Burton came up with two great returns which earned him a couple of break points. Joe stayed tough and held Burton off for several points until a stunning pass cross court gave Kent the vital break. Booming down serves in excess of 120mph, Lewis held serve and won a very good match; this gave Kent a 2-4 lead after the singles. Surrey needed to win all three doubles matches.

 
Will juggins and Adam Skalsky got Surrey off to the perfect start in the doubles by securing a 7-6, 6-1 victory at no.3, whilst Soulsby and Sterland-Markovic were dominating and quickly winning at no.2 doubles. We were tied at 4-4 with the no.1 doubles to come! Unfortunately, Joe Salisbury had further aggravated his back during his epic singles match and so the slightly weaker team of Bull and Wilton had the tough task of taking out Burton and Sargeant. Sadly, after two close sets Surrey came away as valiant losers; Kent took the rubber 3-6, 4-6. We were disappointed with the overall result of a 4-5 loss to Kent but with Lancashire beating Middlesex, we surprisingly had a slim chance of winning the title on Day 3!

Day 3 v Lancashire

Needing to win 9-0 against Lancs to have a chance of winning the title but also knowing that anything less than a 7-2 victory could send us down, everybody knew the importance of playing our very best on Sunday.

With no Joe Salisbury at all on such a crucial day, Joel Parish, was introduced to the singles line up to make his County Cup debut against the very experienced Stephen Winrow. Joel stormed out of the blocks and lead 3-0 before being pegged back by Winrow and eventually defeated 4-6, 0-6. Not exactly the start we were looking for! Will Juggins playing at 5 lost a first set tie break and then a very close second to mean that we were 0-2 down within the opening 2 hours of play. The title was out of the question and all efforts were focused on survival!!

The Surrey boys fought like crazy and reeled off the next four singles matches! Particular mention should be made about Alex Wilton’s straight sets victory over Michael Nott who the day before had beaten Oliver Golding in a truly world class match. So, 4-2 up after the singles and finally something to really cheer about, even if it was only the prospect of survival!

 
Our ‘banker’ doubles pairing of Juggins and Skalsky at 3 started well and despite being taken to second set tie-break, never looked like losing and duly won 6-2, 7-6; we still had a chance of survival! Soulsby and Sterland-Markovic kept the dream alive by winning the first set at no.2, but were pegged back by a resilient Lancs pairing –we were into a match tie-break which we had to win!  Aargh!! Lancs edged the tie break 6-10 to very narrowly condemn Surrey to Div 2 tennis for only the second time in 10 years. The silver lining was that we did beat Lancashire 6-3 and at last finished on a high!

Middlesex finished up as worthy Champions in a very tight group, with Kent as runners-up. Surrey and Lancashire will have a brief encounter in Div 2 next year and will aim to be back in Bath for 2012. Well done to the Surrey girls for making it to Div 1 for 2011, stay up girls and keep Bath warm for us!

A ‘closed out match here’, and the ‘odd tie-break there’ was all that separated us from winning the title with a weakened, jet lagged and semi-injured team. It’s too easy to get wrapped up simply with the results of weekends like this, but spending days like these with fantastic (big) kids, many of whom James and I have taught/known for many years, are priceless. The players benefit greatly from having their passion, ability, confidence and personalities tested to such intense degrees that the learning curve coming out of the 4 days must be very steep indeed. With the camaraderie and relentless support shown towards fellow team mates, I have no doubt, that weekends like this are never, ever forgotten by players and coaches alike. I wonder if they could use Davis Cup as preparation for 18s County Cup!!

Many thanks to my wonderful team of boys, whom I wish all the very best to over the coming year, especially the seven 1992 boys that have played their last junior County Cup. 93s and 94s you are next!  Huge thanks, as always to our immensely popular Team Coach, James Smith who, not only coaches most of the players year round, is also an enormous source of energy for me as we sit up until the early hours of the morning trying to put the best team together! Thanks also to Carole and John Pullen who are regular supporters of the U18 Boys – I cannot recall a year when Carol and John have not joined us for at least one day!

Finally, many thanks to Julie Piper and Bill Perkins who host and run this event so smoothly, every year; it is clearly a very tricky job understanding the balance between vociferous support and unruly behaviour at times, particularly as we are dealing with testosterone filled 17/18yr olds, but Bill has the perfect measure and is clearly an expert in the art of ‘Tennis Hooligan Mediation’!! My thanks to our own Chris Risebro who ensures that all practise courts, hotel rooms and physical therapists are booked and that I have sufficient funds to feed ten hungry animals for 4 days!
A great weekend in all but the result…..until next time!

Report by Team Manager, Justin Sherring.