14U Boys County Cup Report

Team:

• Cyrus
• Adam
• Andrew
• Bryan
• Emmanuel
• Freddie

This year’s 14U County Cup held at North Oxford LTC was plagued with adverse weather conditions which not only tested the players, but the tournament referee as well who managed to complete all matches smoothly & successfully. We are very pleased with the performance of this year’s team and proud of how the team conducted itself throughout the County Cup as well as the training sessions preceding it. At times, we had to make some tough decisions which may have led to one or two players feeling frustrated that they could have played; but we stand by those decisions as they seemed like the right calls to make at the time.

Before the start of the weekend, we were hopeful that the “home court advantage” would put us in good standing to do well in the event but hadn’t accounted for the incumbent weather which served as a great “leveller” for all players. It was clear that players were a little nervous going into the first match against the highest ranked team/County – we as Captains could see that the difference in results came down to a lack of belief in some of our players and not necessarily a technical gulf in ability – lack of match-play form going in from some of the players was a major contributing factor for their low self-belief. Ultimately, there were many close matches across the two days which tends to be the norm when playing a “FAST4 format”. To highlight a couple of the stand-out performances: Cyrus won against Berkshire’s No. 1 player 2-4, 4-0, 10-6 in a hard-fought affair and Adam & Andrew teamed up to win a thrilling match against Berkshire’s Riley & Paul 10-6 in the champs tie-break. There were however several unlucky losses that also went to very close championship tie-breaks; an 8-10 loss to Cambridgeshire and a 9-11 loss to Bedfordshire in a tie-break shoot-out after having had four match points.

The team played four matches consisting of 24 rubbers where we won exactly 50% of those. There was a total of 55 sets played across the two days, and of those sets; 11 went to set tie-breaks and 7 went to a deciding third set championship tie-break (plus that vital “tie-break shoot-out” against Bedfordshire). It should be noted that we played the toughest opponents (Cambridgeshire) on the first day in which three of the matches went to a deciding set and we lost them all very narrowly – the story could have been very different if we had played those champs tie-breaks better / had more luck! Of the 8 doubles matches played over the weekend, Oxfordshire won 5 of them, proving that we had a solid understanding of doubles strategy and the players combined effectively.

We would like to congratulate all the players who behaved exemplarily over the weekend and thank their parents for ferrying them back & forth as well as supporting the team throughout two cold & miserable spectating days! Each player brought valuable contributions to the team and there were no incidents to report in terms of on-court or off-court behavioural issues - a special mention goes out to Freddie who had the loudest cheers and support encouraging the team towards a great win against Berkshire on the first day!

Finally, we would like to thank Tennis Oxfordshire for giving us the opportunity to work with the 14U County Cup Team and look forward to helping the County progress upwards through the ranks in future!

Team Captain: Scott Paxton
Assistant Captain: Allan Cooper