Pete Brown reports back on the 18 & Under Corby 16 Counties event on Sunday 14th February.

The 18 & Under girl's team at Corby were hit by last minute injury. No 1 Lauren McMinn suffered a back problem a few days before the event and had to drop out. This meant Mia Loney moved up to No 1 spot, and Sarah Willacy came in and played at No 4.

The girls lost to Northants 3-1, with Jo Bowen winning her match at No 3. Northants had a strong team, which included Britain's No 5 in this age group. They then drew with Leicestershire 2-2, which was a great result as Leicestershire played Britain's No 9 in their team line up. The girl's then lost to Gloucestershire 3-1. Overall the team came last, but fought hard throughout.
 
The boys team were missing the top 4 rated players in Shropshire for this age group, due to other tournament committments during half term. So Christian Cieslik (ranked 811th in GB in this age group) played at the No 1 position, and had to play players with far superior ratings than himself. Despite this, he only lost in the third set to the No 1 from Northants (ranked 97th in GB), who has an LTA rating 5 places above his. He then beat Leicestershire's No 1 (ranked 89th in GB) with a rating three higher than his own, which was a fantastic achievement. In the end the boys lost to Northants 4-0, Leicestershire 3-1, and Gloucestershire 3-1.
 
This leaves Shropshire in fourth position in the league with two more age categories to be played.