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The fifth week of summer competition saw 17 Appeti players travelling to Sussex for the prestigious Grade 3 Open at The International Tennis Centre - Eastbourne
The week started with 3 fantastic comeback matches, in the boys 14U Ciaran beat Tommy Poli 6-7(1), 6-0, 6-3, while on a neighbouring court Toby just missed out on beating Arlo Brown with an incredible comeback losing in the third set tie break 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 (7) in a match that could not have been any closer!
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The last close match of that day featured Marta who from 0-6, 2-5 down saved 2 match points to beat Ella Wood 0-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4.
In contrast to this Seb came through his first round match against Zak Prawanna 6-0, 6-0 before losing to eventual runner up Tommy Poli in the quarter finals.
Later in the week Ciaran caused a huge upset by beating the number 2 seed Alex Fox 6-2, 6-3 in the boys 16U draw.
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As the week progressed the older age group main draws came to a climax with Ciaran making it through to the 16U boys semi finals, where he lost to eventual champion Matthew Doe.
In the girls 14U Marta made the finals where she met Sussex’s Evelyn Kilsby. In of the matches of the week Marta made a nervous start on a heavily spectated court losing the first set 1-6. In typical fashion Marta kept her head and forced a deciding set by winning the second 6-2.
With a long set in the third we all knew there was much tennis to play, the third set turned into an epic with Marta coming back form 2-5 down to level the third set at 6 all and force a tiebreak. With the same close and competitive tennis as the first three sets the tiebreak went the distance and unfortunately Marta lost it 5-7 in a total of 2 hours and 7 minutes!
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The older age groups concluded with Marta and Ciaran taking on Jake and Gemma Southwick in the mixed doubles. In 2014 Marta and Ciaran played the same pair at the same tournament and only managed to win 1 game from the older pair. This year the match was very different with Marta and Ciaran losing the closest of matches 1-6, 6-3, 1-0 (4). Although the guys lost the change in score line has made them realise how much they have improved over the past 2 years.
On Thursday 5 of our youngest players George, Charlie, James, Dougie and Max arrived for the 10U, this large draw of 32 had a very high level of competitor and although many great matches were played none of our players made it past the second round.
The week finished with the Quorn Cup, this family event pairs up two players from the same family against other family pairs, with one junior and one adult player in each team.
For this event we were very well represented with Ciaran and Rob, Sara and Ollie, Malcolm and Joseph, Paul and Seb and Norman and Toby. After a long day of round robin matches, Malcolm and Joseph qualified for the main draw quarter finals before losing to Patrick and Jeff Jolliffe.
The Quorn Cup proved a great finish to the week.
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Including parents 17 players from the centre took part in the tournament ranging from 10U to adults in the Quorn Cup.
The team will now move on to Bromley for the last week of the summer tour at The Kent Closed Championships!