Kent match report: Junior County Cup, girls 10 and under division

Despite a week of warmth and sunshine, county cup weekend greeted us with some grim weather at Sundridge Park for stage 1 of the competition on Saturday morning. Kent had 2 matches on day one, against Sussex and Berkshire against whom we were drawn in the round robin. The winner and runner-up in the group would compete in the semi-finals on Sunday against the top two teams in the other round robin group.

The Kent girls’ team was made up of four players: Nell Miller, Tamia Amasiatu, Estella Durnford and Rose Johnston. In wet and windy conditions Tamia and Estella were first on to play their singles rubbers against the team from Sussex. Kent got off to a slow start with both Tamia and Estella conceding defeat in 2 sets. However, Kent’s number one player Nell Miller led the line strongly with a comprehensive defeat of her Sussex counterpart leaving the match score at 2-1 to Sussex going into the doubles. Nell and Estella teamed up for the doubles match and levelled the score at 2 rubbers each in an exciting three-set contest. All four girls then stayed on court for the decisive doubles match tie-break shoot out. In a tense and nervy affair, the Sussex pair pipped Kent to the win 11 points to 9 sealing themselves victory in the first match of the day. The second match against Berkshire was a different story altogether, the Kent girls showed themselves to be stronger throughout the team with victory in all three singles rubbers for Nell, Tamia and Estella, although Tamia and Rose were beaten in the doubles. This gave Kent a 3-1 victory in the match and passage to the semi-finals to play the winner of the other group, an impressive Surrey team.

Sunday brought with it some fairer weather, though while there was no rain; it remained blustery for the whole day. Kent began their semi-final against Surrey with similar results to Saturday, but with noticeably improved performance. Despite commendable competitive spirit from Nell and Tamia, they both lost their singles matches in 2 tight sets. We went into the doubles again 2-1 down thanks to victory from Estella in the third singles rubber. Nell partnered Tamia this time for the doubles which went to the Surrey team in straight sets, giving them victory in the match 3-1. This left Kent with a play-off re-match against Sussex for the right to 3rd place. At 2-1 down again after the 3 singles matches, Rose and Nell unfortunately had to retire from the doubles after the first set due to an injury to Rose. This completed the competition with Kent in 4th place, Sussex in 3rd and Surrey the winners, having beaten the travelling Dorset team in the final. We wish Surrey all the best in the next stage of the competition and my sincere thanks go to Nell, Tamia, Estella and Rose who showed great stamina and patience to compete so well over a long and intense weekend of matches in such difficult conditions.

Luke Regan

With thanks to The Carbon Collection for the photo's taken at this event