Starlets prove up to challenge
THE annual challenge match between Northumberland and Durham juniors took place at Belmont School in Durham.
North were keen to regain the trophy they had ceded to Durham in 2017, when they had fielded a weakened team.
This year’s squad was without some of its stronger, older players who were away at the season-ending Under-18 Inter-County Championship.
However, despite that, North emerged triumphant by the significant margin of 33 matches to 23.
The format was original and featured teams of 16 juniors, ranging from year six up to year 11.
Players were split into four groups of roughly equal age and ability, playing a mixture of singles and doubles matches.
An innovation this year was the introduction of the “power play” shuttle.
This meant players could use this shuttle only once throughout their game - if they won the rally on their serve, this could see them potentially gain two points.
Durham prevailed in the youngest group - winning all but two of the matches.
However, North were much stronger in the three older groups, winning groups one and two 11-3. Group three also went to North 9-5.
Matthew Grant was the only undefeated player on the day, taking all five of his matches in group two.
Several other players only suffered one loss throughout – Finlay Smith, Jai Nayyar, Tim Bodani, Mathew Short, Charlotte Graham, Matthew Joyce, Ellen Davison and Ollie Bruce.
The rest of the team who contributed to a great performance were Christian Sharp, Mark Walker, Amy Ward, Charley Robson, Xuehan Zhang, Cameron Twynholm and Naomi Silva.