Tennis aces serve up encouraging displays

Both Shropshire sides, bursting with young talent, finished as runners-up in their groups.

Nigel Hunter, director of tennis for Tennis Shropshire, said: “It wasn’t long ago that we were struggling, especially with the girls, to even field a team, so to have so many players coming through is really positive for Shropshire tennis.

“There was strong performances consistently from teams to finish in second place. They both recovered impressively from tough losses on the first day and showed great team spirit to come back fighting. To finish in runners-up spot was a good effort with both teams going very close to gaining promotion.”

The girls, led by Ryan Bedwell, enjoyed home advantage for their Group 6B matches at The Shrewsbury Club.

They were beaten 9-0 by a strong Northamptonshire side, the eventual table-toppers, on the opening day, but then hit back in style to beat the Channel Islands 5-4 and South of Scotland 7-2.

Amy Dannatt and Amy Humphries both won all four of their matches.

The boys, jointly captained and coached by Will Bonney and Hunter, travelled to Hull to compete in Group 5B.

Just like the county girls, they started with a defeat, losing 6-3 to Durham & Cleveland, the eventual winners, but then they played some fine tennis to get the better of Oxfordshire 6-3 and Avon 5-4.

Roan Jones enjoyed an excellent debut for the 18U side, winning five of his six matches, and Tom Loxley also hit the heights to record four victories.

Hunter added: “Tom’s quite a young No.1 so to win as many games as he was a really strong performance.

“Roan was making his debut for the team at the age of 14 and to win five out of six was another great effort.”