St Albans Tennis Club go close in U11s County Cluster League finals

TENNIS: The U11s County Cluster League tennis finals were held at Gosling Tennis Centre on Sunday and half of the 16 players taking part came from the thriving St Albans Tennis Club at Jersey Lane.

Because of the number of tennis playing juniors at the club in this age group, the club entered two mixed teams of 1999 born tennis players in this county run league.

Of the 10 players used for all the matches, some have ventured into the competitive tennis arena for the first time and they have gained considerably from the experience.

After the group stages which took place in October and November, both teams successfully qualified for the finals day only to find that they would face each other in the semi final.

The St Albans Blazing Rockets team who had beaten Rickmansworth, David Lloyd, Much Hadham but lost to Harpenden in their group unfortunately lost one of their regular players, Lucy Girdlestone, due to injury this week, fortunately new club member Katie Yates stepped in to play alongside regulars Rosie Shreeves, Tollef Ellam and Dominic Boost.

The St Albans All Stars consisting of Sophie Clark, Olivia Elsmarrk, James Wilkinson and Charlie Ellam had not lost a match in their group beating David Lloyd, Northaw & Cuffley, Brookmans Park and drawing with Townsend.

The semi final between the club's two teams was tense and close right to the end with some great tennis being played and the six rubbers were split evenly three each.

However, the All Stars crept through into the final on sets winning 6-4.

Here they faced a strong team from Townsend who had players who were also members of Batchwood playing for them too, and whilst putting up a strong fight, they ended up as worthy runners up.

The Blazing Rockets meanwhile had an extremely close game with Harpenden, to whom they had lost in the group stages.

This time it was even closer and, having been equal on rubbers and sets, the Rockets finished in fourth place by three games.