The Gloucestershire Lawn Tennis Association
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Tuesday, August 07, 2001
The LTA Mens Grass Court Championships
The LTA Mens Grass Court Championships - County Week 23rd - 27th July 2001 - Group 6 HSBC Sports Ground, Beckenham.
The Gloucestershire Men's County Team playing in Group 6 of the LTA Inter County Week won the group and were duly promoted to group 5. Of the five matches played over consecutive days at the HSBC Sports Ground, Beckenham, the Men's team won four matches and narrowly lost the other.
Expectations were high at the start of the week as Adam Wharf, the 21 year old tour player had agreed to play for the whole week. These hopes were realised as Adam playing with Ben Knapp, the Team Captain won 14 out of their 15 matches. However, the key to the success of the team lay in its overall strength with Neil Howitt and Gloucester based coach, Kester Crockett winning 12 of their 15 matches. Robert Edney, Alistair Moran and Graig Smart also contributed valuable wins. Matthew Fuller was also a member of the squad.
The week started well for the County Team, recording wins over Bedfordshire (9-0), West of Scotland (8-1) in the first two days. The win over the West of Scotland was particularly satisfying, as the team had lost comprehensively to them in the Winter County Cup in Glasgow.
A 5-4 loss to the Norfolk team on the Wednesday meant that Gloucestershire had to beat Durham and Cleveland to retain any chance of being promoted. After the first two rounds of matches Gloucestershire were level at 3-3 with Durham and Cleveland. However the team won all 3 of the competitively fought final round of matches and thereby recorded a 6-3 victory. This meant that all Gloucestershire had to do on the final day was to beat Oxfordshire which they did with a relatively comfortable 7-2 win.
Ben Knapp, Men's Senior County Captain.
Posted at 9:37 AM [link]
Wednesday, August 01, 2001
The LTA Ladies Grass Court Championships
The LTA Ladies Grass Court Championships - County Week 23rd - 27th July 2001 - Group 5, East Gloucestershire Club.
The team, Esther Curtis and myself at pair 1, Marie Bell and Heather Sheridan at pair 2, Sarah Carter and Kate Nelmes at pair 3, Ellie Vicary as reserve who played on Friday due to Kate going on holiday.
My main aim was to stay in the group, which we were promoted to last year, missing two key members in Lorraine Ristic and Nikki Rivers in the team.
We had a good week, in extremely hot temperatures, good home support, a lovely meal out on the thursday night, some good and enjoyable tennis and most of all a very good team spirit. I couldn't have asked for more, they all worked hard before County Week and all battled extremely hard during it.
I was pleased with the third place but who knows if some of those three setters had gone our way we may have been promoted, but then we have always got next year, and we are already planning!!!
Mrs Lucy Howitt, Captain Gloucestershire Ladies Team.
Posted at 10:34 AM [link]