Welcome to the board, cya.

Maybe a bit harsh, but at less than 2 games per set, I can see where David was coming from, especially if he was trying to summarise in a hurry - and knowing how good David is at going above and beyond the call of duty in supplying us with info on the juniors, my guess is he was in a hurry otherwise he might have posted in a bit more detail. (or maybe not, I don't know why I'm trying to second guess him )

Thanks for providing the set scores. At least a couple of the sets do look competitive and, more to the point, you can't lose to (the unsurprisingly strong) Russia in the Final without playing well enough to get to the Final in the first place, as David made clear at the start of the paragraph, so well done to the girls for qualifying.

If you did find the description a bit harsh, well at least this isn't like much of the GB media, where when a lower-ranked Brit has a good week, they tend only to report on the loss (or the 'crashing out' in tabloid terms - a simple loss, even a close one to a higher-ranked player, apparently not being an option for some journalists) and completely ignore the fact that the player has done well to get themselves into a position to take part in that match in the first place ...

Good luck to Lauren, Esther and Tanysha in Sheffield!

The under 14 and under 16 qualifying events are underway. Last year the under 14s were unlucky to be drawn against the eventual winners in their qualifying section, but the draw looks more favourable this year. The under 16s are seeded 1 in their qualifying section, despite not having their strongest team (seeding based on the combined Tennis Europe rankings of the top 2 players) whereas there are 6 nations with higher ranked players than our top 2 in one of the other qualifying groups.

Reaching the finals here is required to qualify for the overall finals and both our teams got byes to the semis

U14 qualifying SF

(1) Great Britain v (4) Ukraine

U16 qualifying SF

(1) Great Britain v Belarus

The under 16s took advantage of their fortuitous draw, thanks largely to Maia's contribution, to join the under 14s in the finals

U16 qualifying SF

(1) Great Britain d. Belarus 2-1

Freya lost 1-6 3-6
Maia won 6-1 6-3
Freya/Maia won 6-4 6-2

U16 qualifying F

(1) Great Britain v Germany

The finals of the under 12s started in Sheffield today. Unfortunately the team lost the 2 singles rubbers, so will play for 5th-8th

QF

GBR 1 Romania 2

Lauren lost 2-6 4-6
Esther lost 6-1 2-6 2-6
Lauren/Tanysha won 6-2 6-2

The other finals start tomorrow with the under 14s drawn against Spain, who are often underranked through not playing many tournaments, whilst the under 16s play Hungary, a tough prospect given that their top two players are already in the ITF top 200

The under 16s went down 2-1 but there was a first win in the competition for Freya over the Hungarian number 3. The team will therefore play for 5th-8th place

QF (4) GBR 1 Hungary 2

Freya won 6-4 6-1
Maia lost 3-6 4-6
Maia/Freya lost 4-6 5-7