Women's Winter County Cup

The Women's team travelled to Shropshire to play at Ellesmere College at the end of November to compete in the Winter County Cup. It is such a fantastic event to bring together players of different ages, different playing backgrounds and being part of a team for 3 days. For some players it was their first ever senior county cup and for two members of the team it has been an event they have been part of for over twenty five years. The passion to represent the swans was high with Alisha travelling from an 18U ITF in Oslo straight to Manchester to play for the team.

The big day was on Friday versus Leicestershire. We faced some challenging playing conditions with the indoor court temperature below freezing, but that didn’t dampen the spirit of the players. It was a tie that was neck and neck throughout the singles line up. Emily and Esha (recently moved to Bucks in her first County Cup) were up first against tough opponents. 1-1 after round 2 with Esha getting the win. Next up Shravanti and Alexa. Shravanti was in a hard hitting battle and couldn’t quite hold onto a 1st set lead to lose in 3 sets. Alexa got past a tricky and lively opponent to tie the match 2-2. Up next was Georgie and Izzy. Georgie had been absent from the singles court and Winter County Cup for a while was keen to get going and lost a tie=ght two setter. Izzy up against a college rival played outstanding and took the win in 2.

3-3 going into doubles and we knew it was going to be tough with Leicestershire having three established pairings. Emily paired up with Helen, teaming up youth with experience. The team bolted out of the blocks but unfortunately the opponents fought back and took the lead and the win. Jemima and Alexa made light work of the 2nd pair to take the tie to 4-4 Georgie and Izzy played a cracking match and were so close to winning the 2nd set but couldn’t get across the line, 5-4 to Leicestershire.

You would think this would dampen the spirits of the team but it did not because for the next two days the swans didn’t lose a match beating Suffolk 9-0 and Cornwall 8-0. An amazing weekend that just needed one more match to go our way!

TEAM:

Jemima King (captain), Izzy Marshall, Alexa Wilson, Helen Adams, Georgie Sanders, Emily Marshall, Shravanti Venkatakrishnan, Esha Batth, Alisha Ndukwu