John Dunningham Trophy

NTC, Roehampton

IC of GB vs LTA Juniors

Venue: National Tennis Centre, Roehampton

Date: 23rd October 2021

John Dunningham Trophy 2021

After being so close to winning the John Dunningham Trophy in recent years the IC team were more determined than ever to get over the line.

The LTA hosted us at the NTC and we were taking on some of their top under 14 players. First to the singles court were the 3s and 4s. For the men we had Sam McNeil playing Max Carrier at 3 and Ben Rogers playing Arthur Attrill at 4. On the Women's side we had Laura Slater playing Dina Lipovski at 3 and Jess Renn playing Ciara Moore at 4.

Laura was the first to finish and picked up a comfortable win 6-2 6-3 with the other 3 all splitting sets. Sam came back from a set down to take it to a championship tie break managing to get ahead early and win the final set 10-5 taking us to 2-0 up overall. Jess and Ben were both in a 3rd set tie break and both produced some of their best tennis of the day to win 10-6 and 10-2 respectively and take us to a lead of 4-0 after the first round.

Next up were the 1s and 2s with Naomi Cavaday playing Issie Wong at 1 and Manisha Foster playing Sofia Maine at 2. Also out on court were Oscar Podlewski playing Ben Gusic Wan at 1 and Tim Sagar playing Joe Marzingham at 2.

Tim and Manisha both played some hard hitting tennis but the LTA number 2s were particularly strong and defeated our players in straight sets 6-4 7-6 and 6-3 6-1 respectively.

The last 2 singles matches on court were the number 1s and they were both tight all the way through. Naomi was pushed to a championship tie break and got off to a great start leading 7-2 but the lead slipped away and the match became very tight once again. Match points were had and lost on both sides of the net but it was the LTA that took the win 15-13 in the final set.

Oscar was being given the runaround in his match which was played at a very high level against a junior who won the prestigious Orangebowl a couple of years ago. Oscar kept his cool through the championship tie break and his experience showed as he took the win 10-8 in the 3rd.

We had a brief opportunity to regroup leading 5-3 after singles knowing we only needed 2 more wins to secure our first victory in the John Dunningham Trophy.

The doubles pairings were straight forward sticking to 1&2 and 3&4 all round. The matches were pretty straight forward as well as we didn't drop a set and came storming home with a 9-3 victory and finally got our hands on the John Dunningham Trophy!

A big thank you to the LTA for hosting such a great match and well done to everyone who played and competed so well. The level was high in every match and very enjoyable to watch.

IC of GB Captain, Naomi Austen

Final result:

IC of GB defeated LTA 9-3

Naomi Cavaday lost to Issie Wong 7-5 4-6 13-15

Manisha Foster lost to Sofia Maine 6-3 6-1

Laura Slater defeated Dina Lipovski 6-2 6-3

Jess Ren defeated Ciara Moore 6-1 6-7(2) 10-6

Oscar Podlewski defeated Ben Gusic Wan 6-3 5-7 10-8

Tim Sagar lost to Joe Marzingham 4-6 6-7

Sam McNeil beat Max Carrier 6-2 3-6 10-5

Ben Rogers beat Arthur Attrill 6-4 1-6 10-2

Naomi Cavaday & Manisha Foster beat Issie Wong and Dina Lipovski 7-5 6-4