Our under 13s were also in action with the u15s in Cheshire last weekend along with many of them sampling their first taste of competition across the water.
The Saturday saw an individual under 15 tournament with a mix of Cheshire and Isle of Man u15s as well as u13s. Although competing in an age group above for lots of them, all our u13s performed brilliantly and chalked up many wins and respectable scores between them all.
IOM Under 15s girls Kelly Cheung and Sophie Clague did fantastically well to win their group in the girls doubles and progress through to the final where they put up a great fight before taking the silver medal, well done girls! In the boys singles, there were some great matches to watch, Lok Cheung won his group fairly comfortably but was unlucky to then come across the number one seed and eventual winner in the quarter final where he narrowly lost out at a very respectable 21-16 score. Charlie Kneale and Lok then paired up together in the doubles and also managed to win their group to and reach the semi-finals before again being met by a very strong pairing and unfortunately weren’t able to quite make the final. In the mixed doubles there were some very encouraging performances from all our players who are improving with every tournament they enter. Erin Corlett and Charlie Kneale managed to win their group and advance to the semi-finals before again, being met by strong and older opposition. All in all, a great first day of competition experience for them all and fantastic to see them all enjoying it so much!
After an evening of shopping, mini golf, eating, trampolining (and hopefully a bit of sleeping!) they were all back in the hall and raring to go on Sunday morning for the team comp. The Isle of Man had 2 under 13 teams competing and all played singles, level doubles and mixed in a similar format the UK county Shires league.
First up was mixed doubles and brilliant wins from Wai Cheung and Abigail Kwan, Elias Parry and Lara Stewart, Michael and Sarah Garrity and Anish Agarwal and Sky Taylor from one team and Jasper and Erin Corlett, Zane and Xara Quinn, Charlotte Quayle and Ansh Agarwal and Connie Creer and Heilok Tang from the other team.
Next to play was the boys Singles with Wai, Elias, and Evan Cooke all taking wins for team IOM, Evan’s was a real nail biter finishing 24-22 showing great composure from Evan at the end! Over in the other team, there were great wins from Jasper, Zane and Ansh, with Heilok just losing out after an epic battle with his opponent that finished 28-26!
The girls singles followed with Connie, Xara, Abigail, Sky and Sarah winning their games comfortably with some very steady play and all of the girls carrying their improvement through from the previous day with lots of lessons learnt and put in to practice. This put the IOM ahead with just the doubles to go.
In the boys doubles, Elias and Michael had a super win at first boys 21-8, Evan and Wai battled hard just losing 25-23 in a very tight game against a strong pairing, Evan then paired up with Anish to take a win at 3rd boys 21-11 and Wai and Elias teamed up to make it another IOM win 21-8 at 4th.
In the girls Doubles, Connie and Charlotte had a very convincing win 21-4, Erin and Xara keeping cool to win a very close match 21-18 and Lara and Sarah chalked up 2 wins finishing 21-10 and 21-15.
This resulted in an overall win for the IOM 15-6 for team one and 15-5 for team two, an excellent result but more importantly a brilliant experience for our players who will hopefully take away lots from the experience, both on court and also off the court supporting and having fun as a team!
A huge thanks to all our coaches and organisers for preparing the kids prior to the trip, and also to the parents who accompanied and supported the players all weekend! Thanks also to the IOM Steam Packet for their travel assistance, its much appreciated.
