Men's Winter County Cup 2018

Cambridgeshire beat Shropshire 5-4 and Northumberland 5-3 but lost to Herefordshire and Worcestershire 4-5 coming third overall with 4 points, 3 played, 14-12 Rubbers, 31-28 Sets, 52.5% Sets, 280-261 Games and 51.8% Games.  

As always, just putting the outcome and the results never begin to tell the full tale.  First day, we came up against a sharp Herefordshire & Worcestershire team.  A lot of close rubbers were fiercely contested, with chances not quite going our way.  Chad Richard battled back from a set down to close out a tough 3 set win, brilliant performance.  Strong clinical professional performances on their men's debut from Yujiro Onuma and Nick Ghaznavi.  

Middle Saturday and our opponents were Shropshire.  A lot of grit and resilience was shown throughout the team.  Again Yujiro put on a fighting display to beat a tough opponent in a 3 hour epic.  Matt Taylor ruthlessly demolished their No 1 and then teamed up with Nick Ghaznavi to clinch the tie 6-5 in an impressive doubles.  Chad Richard and CJ Kindered showed solid doubles nouse all weekend.  Always tough to take when you beat the eventual group champions but don't get promotion.

On the last day, Northumberland, to keep dreams of promotion alive we had to either win 9-0 or 8-1.  Things were looking good, going 3-0 up however it wasn't to be.  We were also relying on results between Herefordshire & Worcestershire and Shropshire.  

Lesson learnt and some strong experiences had which bodes well for future years.