The season of age related European Summer Cups gets underway tomorrow with qualifying for the under 14s Other age groups have qualifying in a month's time, but the under 14s have to be earlier, because of preparation for the World Juniors in August. The British team (Liam Sharkey, Oskar Laskowski and Max Hodkinson) is top seeded in their qualifying group in Valencia, and take on Ireland tomorrow. They are in a strong qualifying group, but benefit from having the two other teams with top 10 ranked players (Span and Portugal) in the opposite half of the draw. Two teams from each qualifying group reach the European finals.
A very comfortable win over Ireland for the under 14s with 6 bakery product sets (Oskar and Liam playing singles), meaning they play Estonia tomorrow, with the winner qualifying for the European final
By contrast to the girls the under 14 boys have breezed into the European final. Estonia were crushed 3-0 dropping just 9 games over the 3 matches (Liam and Oskar again playing the singles). Tomorrow they take on Portugal, one of the two other nations with a top 10 ranked player, for seeding rights.
A smooth 3-0 victory over Portugal highlighted by Liam beating the TE4 6-3 6-1 means that our under 14s will be seeded for the final, also in Valencia, starting Monday
The under 14 boys are seeded 2 behind Switzerland, who include the player who tops the Tennis Europe rankings currently (Richard Mitchell). They take on Poland in the quarter-finals, with a place in the European Cup semis and a spot at the World Juniors on offer to the winners.
