National prize for junior tennis girls (From Barry And District News)

National prize for junior tennis girls

SINCE February more than 2,500 teams have been competing in the National Junior Club League - each team aspiring to reach the residential finals weekend in London, where the top four teams in each age group play off against each other over three days to decided the top four clubs in Great Britain.

In December 2003, XL Tennis Academy formed a tennis club with just seven players, and from these seven entered an U11 Girls team into the competition. The team, Leah Cox (Magor) Amy Hooper (Dinas Powys), Safiyyah Azeez (Dinas Powys and Emily Jellings (Wenvoe) - were all pupils from the coaching team of Matt Wright and Ellen Jones who were in the process of establishing an Academy programme at UWIC Tennis Centre.

In the county stage XL had comprehensive wins over all its opposition without conceding a set against Cowbridge Tennis Club, Dinas Powis LTC and Swansea Tennis Club 'B'. The team then went on the beat Allt - Yr - Yn (5 - 0) and Swansea 'A' (4 - 1) in the county play-offs.

Having qualified for the regional play-offs the team faced Wolverhamption where again they won 5 - 0. Next up was Esporta, Warickshire, who has proved to be very strong earlier in this year in the Junior County Cup competition. However, following some very gutsy performances from Leah, Amy and Safiyyah, XL won again, 4 - 1.

This progressed the team into the National Finals weekend. Following the singles matches in the semi-final the tie was level, to be decided by the doubles. After a closely fought match the XL team finally lost 3 - 6, 4 - 6 to the eventual winners of the competition, Oxford Sports.

The girls then went on to play for third and fourth place. Not put off by the previous loss the team rose to the challenge, dropping only a handful of games over eight sets in a decisive 5 - 0 win over West Hants LTC.

Overall this placed the UWIC Tennis Academy team third in Great Britain. For more information on the UWIC Tennis Academy contact Matt Wright on 07968 189 0438.