This weekend sees the start of the European Summer Cups, with the qualifying rounds for the under 14s. Their ultimate goal is a place in the World Junior finals in August. The British team (Danielle Britton, Megan Knight and Liv Zingg ) are in a qualifying group in France, and have started well with a commanding victory over Belgium. Megan won 6-1 6-0 and Danielle 6-2 6-2 this morning for a winning 2-0 lead. Victory over Portugal or Latvia (who have a top 5 ranked player) tomorrow would gain qualification for the European finals next weekend.
A comfortable victory against Portugal means the under 14 girls book their place in the finals in Italy at the weekend. Megan won 6-2 6-1 and Daniella 6-3 6-2, before Daniella and Liv lost the dead doubles. They take on Austria tomorrow for seeding rights in the finals.
The under 14 girls miss out on a seeding spot in the finals after a 2-0 loss to Austria (Megan lost 6-4 6-1 and Daniella was edged out 4-6 7-6(3) 7-6(6)
The finals start tomorrow and we have the worst possible draw - against top seeds Czech Republic, who include TE1 Jana Kovackova (along with 2 other top ten ranked girls)
The doubles was equally emphatic, but not the way we would have hoped. We play Romania tomorrow who, in rankings terms are the strongest of the 4 beaten quarter-finalists. The winners of that match will also go through to the World Junior finals
U14 QF
(1) Czech Republic 2 GBR 1
Katerina Zajickova lost to Megan Knight 2-6 2-6
Jana Kovackova beat Daniella Britton 6-0 6-2
Kovackova/Zajickova beat Britton/Knight 6-1 6-1
The under 14 girls finish fifth after a 2-1 win over Slovakia. Liv Zingg was drafted in and lost in 3, Megan won in 3 and Daniella/Megan won the doubles.