The junior season ends, finally, in York

The Northumberland U14 team travelled down to York on Saturday 9 June for the annual Mixed Doubles Tournament held in memory of Cerryg Davies, a young Yorkshire player who died suddenly some years ago.  This is manager Karen Davison’s report.

There were 10 teams, each of four pairs, entered into this mixed tournament: the players were playing for points in the team competition but also for a final positions in the top or bottom halves of the tournament as a couple.  Games were played to 21 with no extensions.

The Northumberland team were:  Eve Beechinor-Collins, Ellen Davison, Lucy Dodd, Charlotte Graham, Ollie Edmondson, Jack Tilbury, Hugh Twelves, Mark Walker.  Our partnerships were Charlotte & Jack; Ellen & Mark; Lucy & Ollie; and Eve & Hugh.  They each played the first round in separate groups of four pairs with the following results:

Charlotte & Jack won all 3 opening games and were clear winners of their group;Ellen & Mark won 1, lost 2 games to 5 and 19 and finished 3rd in the group;
Lucy & Ollie won 2, lost a game to 19 and finished 2nd in the group; and
Eve & Hugh fought hard but were unable to secure any wins, finishing 4th in the group.

Onto the 2nd round where the level of play in groups of five was more evenly matched.
Ellen & Mark recorded 2 wins and had some really close matches, losing 14 & 18 before finishing 3rd in the group;
Lucy & Ollie  recorded 3 wins and had one really tough game losing to 7, finishing 2nd in the group;
Charlotte & Jack recorded 1 win and lost 3 closely fought matches 20/16/10, finishing 4th;
Eve & Hugh recorded a win and the games they lost were to 18/16/19 again finishing 4th.

In the final round, the players were split into a top half and a bottom half.  Having done really well to get into the top half of 20 pairs, Lucy & Ollie won 1 game and lost 2, and Charlotte & Jack recorded 3 wins: this left our two pairs finishing in 7th and 13th places overall respectively.  The bottom half consisted of 16 pairings.  Ellen & Mark won all their games in the group and finished 9th in the bottom half, with Eve & Hugh winning a game, losing 2, and finishing 14th.

All the players’ scores went towards the final placings for the team and Northumberland finished in 7th place out of the 10 teams.  The team played very well against some tough competition at times and our final placing of 7th shows how far this team have come since last season.  My thanks to the team who behaved impeccably on and off the court – a pleasure to manage.  Thanks also to Micky Walker for his help and coaching support.  An enjoyable day out for Team Northumberland ended with a game of football in the park prior to the train journey back home.