TENNIS: IT was a tense afternoon at the St Albans tennis club in Jersey Lane when their two U12s boys’ teams were competing in the County Final. Having over come strong opposition in the group stages from around the County to reach the final, both teams were keen to win the overall title, but they knew it was going to be close. Both teams, divided by their year of birth, were at full strength for this final which was watched by family, friends and club members.

TENNIS: IT was a tense afternoon at the St Albans tennis club in Jersey Lane when their two U12s boys’ teams were competing in the County Final. Having over come strong opposition in the group stages from around the County to reach the final, both teams were keen to win the overall title, but they knew it was going to be close. Both teams, divided by their year of birth, were at full strength for this final which was watched by family, friends and club members.

The singles matches all took over two hours to complete, and every match included at least one tie break. The number one singles match between James Wilkinson and Toby Parker, both with an LTA rating of 9.1, was eventually won by the younger and somewhat shorter player James 6-4, 5-7 and 10-5 in the deciding tie break.

The second singles, between the two footballing friends Dominic Boost and Nathan Davies was also eventually won by the younger player, Dominic, 7-6, 6-3.

Josh Cozens got a revenge for the older 1998 born team by beating Charlie Ellam 6-7, 6-2 and then 15-13 in the deciding tie break.

The final singles match on court took two and half hours to complete, and this time Charlie’s twin brother, Tollef beat the older player, James Fox 7-6, 7-5.

With the match score at 3-1 to the 1999 born players after the singles, the 1998 born team needed to win both doubles matches to stay in the tie. After a tense hour, during which the players encouraged and spurred each other on, the 1998 doubles pairs won both their matches. This meant that the overall result had to be decided on number of sets won, and the younger 1999 born team came out victorious seven sets to five.

Meanwhile the U12s girls narrowly lost their final against Radlett Tennis Club at Gosling.

Annabell McGregor and Amy Lewis took the Radlett team, which include Under 12 County Champion Lucy Booth, to the deciding doubles, but despite some very long rallies, the St Albans pair had to settle for a well deserved second place.