The Wiltshire Mens and Ladies teams played the LTA Summer County Cup from 22nd – 26th July 2024. The Men played at West Worthing in Group 5 and the Ladies in Group 6 at Felixstowe.
MENS REPORT
TEAM: William Burridge, Ben Rogers, Francis Smith, Rory Smith, Alex Heaps, Michael Barry, William Bissett and Cameron Simpson
CAPTAIN: Neil Watts
I couldn’t have been prouder of our men’s county team this summer. We had a rough couple of weeks leading up to the event with some key players unable to compete due to injury but the way the team stepped up and fought for each other was amazing.
Results went against us and we seemed to lose every match on the first couple of days on a match tiebreak. Loses to Lincolnshire and North Wales could have set the team back but the fight they showed was what County Tennis is all about. A tough loss on Wednesday to Dorset almost sealed our relegation but heads still didn’t drop. We finally got our rewards with a 6-3 victory over Hereford and Worcestershire on the last day.
A tough week but lots of positives to take forward. Big thanks to the team and big thanks to Giles Hussey and Sir Geoff Owen for their support of the team during the week.
Neil Watts (Team Captain)
LADIES REPORT
TEAM: Hannah Booth, Sophie Clark, Rebecca Heaps, Holly Fleming, Georgia Ifil, Jessica Longjohn, Katie Penny and Niamh Townsend
CAPTAIN: Sophie Clark
Our Wiltshire ladies showed a great fighting spirit throughout the week battling it out against 4 fellow counties. As ladies captain I was so proud of the effort that the team put onto the court as we narrowly missed out on winning so many crucial matches coming down to third set tiebreaks.
We played a total of 19 third set tiebreaks over the course of the week and if more of these had gone our way, we would have finished much higher on the leaderboard, possibly even gaining a promotion. But the ladies did not give up and we came back on the final day beating Staffordshire to secure our first win of the week showing improvement from last years summer event where we lost to Staffordshire.
Overall some great things to work on going forward to winter county cup in November!
Sophie Clark (Team Captain)
