Very good win, considering Routa's pedigree. One more win would take us into the finals for the first time since 2002 (with a certain A Murray and J Baker in the team)

QF

(1) Great Britain 2 Czech Republic 1

Jonny O'Mara beat Petr Hovorka 6-3 7-5
Chris Pearce lost to Marek Routa 3-6 6-7(2)
O'Mara/Pearce beat Routa/Hovorka 6-3 6-3

SF

(1) Great Britain v Ukraine

first strike to the brits in the semis!!

jonny just won. played very well even a little within himself he reckoned. a couple of sloppy games towards the end of the first set but then closed the door and powered on to a strong second set. 4 n 1

Back in 2002 (when the 3rd member of our team was Matthew Brown, who ended his senior career with a career high in the 900s), we lost the Final 2-1 to a Spanish team consisting of Rafa, Granollers and Salva-Vidal.

As OEM points out "Not a surprise that J O'Mara has been under the wing of Judy Murray"

TE are reporting that France won the other semi, so here's hoping for a good old GEM bash in the Final

-- Edited by steven on Saturday 19th of February 2011 03:25:09 PM

DavidC wrote:

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steven wrote:

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David, you don't happen to know who was in the GB team when we beat Germany in the Final in 1993, do you? That was the only year we won it, but the last year for which TE doesn't have an archived results page.

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I've got records going back to 1995, when I started following British tennis, but unfortunately not as far back as 1993 - and there was no cross-reference in the British Tennis magazine reports on the 1997 and 2002 finals. However I found the following from the Independent archive for 1993

"JAMIE DELGADO beat Nicolas Kiefer 2-6 6-4 6-1 to lead Great Britain to a 2-1 win over Germany, in the final of the Under-16 European Winter Cup in Saarbrucken yesterday."

It's possible that Martin Lee may also have been in the team based on his age and ability, but that's just a guess.


We play a strong French team in the final who demolished Germany in the singles today. Their number 1 Enzo Couacaud has a 28-4 record in ITF Juniors

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Another great find, I'm impressed

I thought Tim might have been part of the team, but he was already too old.

You finding something on the Independent archive prompted me to check the Times archive for 1993 - there doesn't seem to be a relevant article about the Winter Cup itself, but an article towards the end of the year about the World Youth Cup says:

"The old guard may not have shown significant signs of improvement at the
national tennis championships two weeks ago, but there is hope on the horizon.
Yesterday, Britain opened their account at the World Youth Cup in New Zealand
with a 2-1 victory over the Czech and Slovak Republics.

It is the first time Britain have qualified for the event and, as holders of
the European Winter Cup, the three young men Jamie Delgado, Alex Osterrieth and
Martin Lee are confident of making solid progress."

This could be taken to imply that the Winter Cup team was the same.

It also says later in the article (you'll quickly be able to tell that it predates OEM being the Times tennis correspondent LOL):

"John Hicks, the team captain, feels that Britain have the talent to bring back
a medal. It all seems to prove the claim of the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA)
that it has, at last, a system to spot and tap talent.

The Rover Junior Tennis Initiative, which produced Osterrieth and Lee, has
been running for three years, taking children from ten years old and providing
squad training, a competitive structure and a chance of scholarships to a
tennis school at Bisham Abbey. At 16, they can move to the national squads,
which is where Hicks takes over. He is enthusiastic about the effect the Rover
scheme has had on his set up in Wrexham."

``We have strength in depth now,'' he said, ``the scheme is developing a lot
of good players. This year's players are good, but the year below them is an
even better crop.''

But some things never change:

"Britain's leading light in New Zealand, however, is Delgado, who has developed
his game outside the LTA's initiative. He was spotted six years ago by David
Lloyd and, with Lloyd's backing, now works with Stephen Shaw. He is the young
man recognised by both Lloyd and Hicks to have world-class potential.

 

Shame about Jonny's injury - at least from his latest tweet he sounds hopeful of being able to play tomorrow

For the record Jonny & Billy lost 6-4 0-6 1-2 rtd

Jonny not only recovered but according to his tweet ........ "Yassssssss! Just played an amazing match and won 63 62 played so well!! "

Great start, but Chris has the strong no.1 to play next