It’s been a busy weekend for two of the junior teams representing Sidmouth in the Aegon Tournament with both the U14 boys and U16 boys playing away at Exeter Golf & Country Club (EGCC), writes Kate Truman.

The U14 boys played first, on Saturday, and succeeded in winning their second match of the tournament after a hard fought battle. Ben Harrison and Harry Ensall won their singles matches with Jed Ionov-Flint and Alfie Crick losing theirs but putting in a great effort. Harry and Jed lost their doubles to a very experienced doubles pairing from Exeter team but Ben and Alfie didn’t disappoint and won their doubles, the first set going to a tie break.

At neck and neck, this meant the overall result had to be decided by an exciting final ‘shoot-out’ tie break. Ben and Harry paired up for this important decider and secured an impressive 10-3 win – a great result overall for the boys.

EGCC’s coach confessed that his U14 team had never been beaten before and that he would like to bring them to Sidmouth for a friendly match later in the year as the matches had all been so close.

It was back at EGCC again on Sunday, this time with the U16 boys, two of whom had played the day before, Harry also being a member of the U16 team and Jed playing up due to a last minute drop out.

They joined Ollie Truman and Rowan to battle it out on a very hot and windy afternoon. Again, it was a very close contest. Ollie and Harry both won their singles comfortably while Jed and Rowan just missed out on theirs, Jed having a marathon battle that ended when he lost his tie break by just 2 points.

He then had to regroup, rehydrate and refocus to play his doubles with Ollie but, having not played regularly together before, the two couldn’t quite sort their strategy and lost 3-6, 3-6.

Meanwhile, on the second court, Harry and Rowan (also a first-time pairing) won their first set quite comfortably but, as so often happens in tennis, then lost concentration.

Before they knew it, the second set had run away from them. At one set all, the boys had to play a nail-biting and incredibly close championship tie-break but it was EGCC’s turn to triumph on this occasion and the opponents won the decider 12-10, giving EGCC an overall win.