09 Feb Girls U14 Winter Cup Update
The Irish U14 Girls team came home from a very tough group of matches over the weekend at the Tennis Europe Winter Cup in Bree, Belgium. Ireland were unsuccessful in all of their three ties during the Qualifying Round for the Winter Cup Finals in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
Sinead Lohan, Megan McGreevy and Caroline Lynch were the three girls selected for the event with Tennis Ireland coach Galina Misiuriova travelling as Team Captain.
Tournament preparations for the event were disrupted before even reaching the Northern Belgian town of Bree, when adverse weather conditions during Thursday (5th February) meant that Dublin Airport had to cancel the majority flights departing to mainland Europe. The heavy snow delayed the teams arrival by over 12-hours resulting in the girls arriving in Bree on the same day as their first match against a very strong Netherlands outfit. The Dutch team of Indy de Vroome and Marlou Kluiving (both Top 100 players in Europe) outclassed the Irish throughout Friday’s tie winning all three rubbers without dropping a set.
Saturday’s tie with Luxembourg proved to be somewhat more fruitful for the Irish as Sinead Lohan recorded an excellent 6-0, 6-0 win over the Luxembourg No.1 Laura Correia after Ireland’s No.2 Megan McGreevy had put in a committed performance against Christine Roller before losing out 6-4, 6-1. Caroline Lynch and Sinead Lohan teamed up in the third and final rubber against Luxembourg’s No.1 and 2. The Irish pairing battled hard to secure a win for the Irish but were narrowly beaten with a final score of 6-4, 4-6, [10 8].
Saturday’s narrow loss to Luxembourg meant that Ireland would finish the weekend in a play-off for 7th and 8th position against a Spanish team who would have been surprised to find themselves in such a position after two defeats against Belgium and Slovenia. The Spaniards were determined not to go home without a win and overcame the Irish charges in all three rubbers to record a 3-0, consigning the Irish to eight spot at the end of the weekend. Although the Irish failed to record a win over the other nations, matchtime against some of the strongest tennis nations will prove to be invaluable experience for all three players.
Competition hosts Belgium came out on top of the Zone, defeating Germany 2-1 in the Qualifying Final, both countries will progress to the Winter Cup Finals.
For further Tennis Ireland reports on the Winter Cup click here, for a full list of results at the U14 Tennis Europe Winter Cup click here