The European Summer Cups are contested in 3 categories: U14, U16 and U18. The first of these, the 14 & under had qualifying over the last 3 days for next weekend's finals. Unfortunately despite having our strongest squad we were well beaten by Spain, who were not seeded to qualify, because their players do not play many TE14 events and are therefore underranked, especially on clay. Luke Bambridge and Evan Hoyt lost their singles in straight sets, whilst Luke combined with Chris Pearce to salvage some pride in the doubles.
As a result they will not make the finals, nor the ITF World Junior Tennis competition in August.
Qualifying for the other two age categories takes place at the end of July.
Qualifying for the U16 and U18s started today. The U16s is the more significant event, as it leads to qualification for the Junior Davis Cup. First though the team of Oliver Golding, George Morgan and Andrew Bettles has to negotiate a qualifying group in Wroclaw, Poland. Day 1 has been a breeze against a weak Danish team. As a result they play the second seeds Latvia next, who include the Podzus twins, also encountered in Moscow last week.
U16
GBR d. Denmark 3-0
George Morgan d. Mads Engsted 6-2 6-1 Andrew Bettles d. Casper Melskens 6-1 6-2 Golding/Morgan d. Torpegaard/Melskens 6-1 6-3
Meanwhile the under 18s also had an easy match against Turkey, and will need to beat the second seeds Croatia, who include one top 50 player, to qualify for next week's finals
U18
GBR d. Turkey 3-0
Ashley Hewitt d. Ahmet Sarioglu 6-2 6-0 Jack Carpenter d. Barkin Yalcincale 6-3 6-2 Gabb/Hewitt d. Guney/Yalcinkale 6-1 6-1
George Morgan d. Maciej Smola 6-4 3-6 7-5 Oliver Golding d. Mikolaj Jedruszczak 6-3 7-6(4)
As a result of this impressive 100% record GBR will be one of the 4 seeded teams in next week's finals, and will thus avoid Spain (Boluda-Purkiss plus 2 of the semi-finalists in the European Championships) and the strong Czech Republic squad (3 players ranked around 100 ITF) in the first round - victory in which will guarantee a place in the junior Davis Cup
U18
Italy d. GBR 2-0
Ashley Hewitt lost 6-2 7-6(5) Richard Gabb lost 6-0 6-2
The U16 finals for the Borotra Cup in Le Touquet start on Monday, with GBR seeded 2. Unfortunately they have drawn the strongest unseeded nation, Slovak Republic, who include the European U16 champion and top ranked U16 in the world, Filip Horansky.
Andrew Bettles lost to Maciej Smola 7-5 1-6 6-2 George Morgan beat Maciej Romanowicz 6-1 6-0 Morgan/Golding lost to Romanowicz/Smola 3-6 7-6(2) [12-10]
Another agonising defeat in the deciding doubles means we finish 6th. According to the competition rules on the ITF site there are 6 qualifiers from Europe, but Tennis Europe only indicates 5 in its article, so it remains to be confirmed whether we will be in Mexico.