AEGON 12U County Cup Kent boys are National Champions

Congratulations to: Nicholas Brookes, James Davis, Jonah Smith, Matthew Summers and Thomas Wright and their Team Captains Max Robinson and Dominic Cobby

Over the 9th and 10th of July at the Bolton Arena, the Kent U12 Boys County Cup Team became National Champions!!!

Report from Max Robinson

After a 7 hour ordeal on the m25 and the m6,The Kent team arrived at Bolton on Friday evening exhausted and drained. After a quick bit to eat ,the boys went to bed. Not the preparation that Kent wanted, as the next morning we were to face Shropshire in the quarter finals as only 8 teams had qualified for the event.

Thomas Wright played Sam Chapman in what was meant to be a tough match; however Thomas showed why he was number one in the country and was too solid for Sam and wrapped up the first win of the day. Nick was up next and again Kent were just too strong as nick was bombarding William Davies with big forehand and serves to take a straight set win. James Davies was last match on against Tom Thelwell Jones and followed suite, winning in straights. Kent were on a high and confidence was growing. Matt summers and Jonah Smith wanted to play the doubles and showed a fantastic display of intercepting and put away volleying and took the match again in straight. Kent were through to the semis.

After lunch, Kent had to play Essex. Thomas started off against James Caddies and started out of the blocks quickly. With a great display of athleticism and superior strokes from everywhere Thomas wrapped up the match in record time. Nick had a disappointing match with the Essex number two and lost in a very close match with some poor serving and too many errors. However knowing Nick, he would learn from that and come back stronger next time. James had a close game with some great tennis but also some sloppy tennis. I think the realisation of us getting to the final was becoming apparent as the standard started to drop from the team however, James grinded out a great win and took Kent to a 2 -1 lead in rubbers. This meant Thomas and James had to go back on court for the doubles as we needed to win to go through to play Northamptonshire in the final. After possibly one of the worst sets of doubles I have seen and being a break down, something clicked with James and Tom. Maybe it was the shouting and bad language coming out of my mouth at them but whatever it was it did the trick and they raised their game and started to play some proper doubles with James making himself look even bigger than he normally is at the net and becoming a brick wall and taking the match. Kent were now in the final of National County Cup and who knew what tomorrow would bring.     

It was a big day for Kent the following morning as they were facing Northamptonshire in the final to be crowned National Champions. First up was a big match between the two top U12’s in the country Thomas Wright and Joe Tyler. As you would expect it was a match of high quality. Despite playing some excellent aggressive tennis and dominating many of the points, Thomas was unable to find a way through Joe who played with great consistency and produced some big forehands to win the match.

With Kent 1-0 down they needed a big performance from Nick Brookes to beat Northants number 2 Cameron Yuill. He did just that with a disciplined performance combining rock solid ground strokes with some big winners. This was a great response from his defeat in the semi-final.

At 1-1 after the first two singles James Davies was next up for Kent against Sam Smith with the winner of this match giving their team a huge advantage going into the doubles. Unbeaten throughout this years County Cup, James dominated the match from start to finish with a powerful display, his crushing serves and forehands proved too much for Sam putting Kent 2-1 up. 

After two weekends of tennis and 27 matches it came down to the doubles. Thomas Wright and James Davies were selected for Kent playing the 1 and 2 of Northamptonshire. For the last rubber in the final this match really was a fitting end to crown a county the National Champions. This match was a real treat with tennis of the highest quality played. It was played at a furious pace like watching a ball in a pinball machine pinging around, with volleys being traded, unbelievable reactions, pickups, angles and crushing winners. Despite at 3-1 up in the first set seeing 5 set points slip by and the match being levelled to 3-3, Kent took the first set 5-3 and carried on their momentum to take the second set and win the match to make Kent U12 boys National Champions. 

It was a great weekend for everyone involved and a thoroughly deserved win for the Kent team. Also a huge thank you to all the parents and of course to Dominic Cobby for being the Vice Captain and supporting all my decisions over the last month.

Max Robinson

Captain