Jana and Sarah were selected to play for the Devon Over 35s Ladies in the County Cup in Eastbourne held Saturday 5 to Monday 7 August 2023.
The over 35s County Cup is an annual event in which 44 counties compete over a long weekend on the famous grass court courts in Devonshire Park, Eastbourne. The 44 counties are placed in 11 groups of four counties. These groups are placed in order of the previous year’s results with Group 1 being the ‘premier league’. Final positions are based on how each county performs within that particular group over the weekend – with top teams getting promoted to the next group and bottom teams relegated to the group below. Devon failed to put in a Ladies Over 35s team over the last couple of years, which meant they dropped into the bottom (6th) division.
The weekend of this year’s County Cup was a mix of sunshine and showers, and of course grass courts don’t like rain! This meant that there were lots of delays, resulting in the play format being reduced. There was no play at all on Saturday and shorts sets to 4 were played on Sunday and Monday. On Monday, the format was further reduced to fit all the remaining matches in, and only two singles and one doubles match were played (standard format is two singles and three doubles).
Jana and Sarah played three doubles in total, two against the South of Scotland on Sunday and one against Staffordshire on Monday. They won their first two doubles but lost the one on Monday, in some pretty tricky windy conditions. Credit to the Staffs ladies who coped with the strong side winds better than our girls.
Devon missed out on promotion by just one rubber but I think we can safely say that our girls did our club proud!
Well done both of you – you certainly make me proud!