Surrey Girls U10 County Cup Success for coach at Sheen Tennis Club
By Caroline Jordan
CCA Performance Coach, Sheen Tennis Club
As a former Surrey Junior Champion, I was delighted to be asked by Surrey County to select and work with the Surrey U10 girls’ squad for the forthcoming County Cup tournament 2011. The journey started in May with a selection process over 3 weekends where we had to pick our top 4 girls to represent Surrey.
I was staggered by the determination and quality of tennis produced by these 9 yr old girls. After much deliberation the 4 girls were selected, although all those who attended trials are a credit to their clubs and County.
The first stage of the tournament was played at Bromley Tennis Club. With very challenging tennis conditions the girls managed to beat the 3 counties in our round robin group and book a place against Sussex for a nail-biting semi-final. The contest rested on a doubles match. The Surrey girls held their nerve and moved onto the National finals!
In very high spirits we all made our way up to Bolton to take on the northern lasses! Stakes were high this time as the format of the tournament was a straight knock-out event. Surrey girls continued their winning streak and after beating Warwickshire and Staffordshire we were in the final!
The girls were ecstatic and lots of team planning took place on the Saturday evening for the forthcoming final on Sunday against Middlesex. After fighting hard, Surrey girls went 2-1 down once all the singles matches were played, managing to pull back a doubles win for a draw. At 2-2 the girls faced a penalty shoot out for a National final victory. A tiebreak first to 10 points would decide our fate.
Our Surrey girls clinched the title for the first time ever in this age category and were thrilled with their National victory. It goes without saying that all at Surrey Tennis are extremely proud of this talented group of young players. As their coach it was an absolute pleasure to work with them and I wish them all well for the future.
Read the full article on the LTA website
{linkr:none}Sheen Junior in Road To Wimbledon National Challenge
Reporter: Nigel Cowlin
Sheen junior tennis member Linnea Bengtsson, aged 12, was one of the select few British players who qualified to play in the 2009 HSBC Road to Wimbledon National 14 and under Challenge played at the All England Lawn Tennis Club (August 17th - 22nd).
Thousands of junior players entered the HSBC Road to Wimbledon this year and only the 128 most talented boys and girls, who won through three stages of competition qualified to contest the National Finals on the famous grass courts at Wimbledon.
During finals week the players compete in round robin groups of 4 with only the top 2 players in each group moving into a 32-player knock out draw. Congratulations are due to Linnea who showed great skill and determination in coming out on top in her group winning all 3 singles matches. Linnea demonstrated excellent consistency, creativity in exploiting the angles and depth of shot in her matches against girls up to 2 years older from Avon, Sussex and Nottingham.
Whilst Linnea lost a very closely contested match in the main draw to Sezan Walker from Middlesex, she has benefited greatly from the experience and will surely go from strength to strength. Commenting on her week at Wimbledon Linnea said:- "Playing at Wimbledon was such an amazing experience. I was really surprised and excited to have won my round robin box and to get through to the main draw with the best 32 girls in Great Britain. Every match I played I felt a buzz of excitement playing on the grass at Wimbledon and looking across at No. 1 court. Playing on the grass was a lot different to other surfaces - there was much more variety in the game with lots of drop shots, slices and short angles. At the end of each day, I was shattered as I was sometimes playing two 2 hour matches finishing at about 8.00pm.
The highlights of the week were playing on court 19, the players party and the dressing rooms which had wonderful showers!! I'm looking forward to the clinic with Tim Henman on Saturday. This experience is something I will never forget!!"
Tim Henman after coaching Linnea at Wimbledon
British Tennis Membership
Be a part of the British Tennis family!
Click here for more information and to sign up to British Tennis Membership.
Clubmark Logo
Clubmark Accredited
