Three teams from Sevenoaks School played in the Regional Finals of the AEGON Cup Schools competition in Welwyn Garden City last week. First up were Intermediates Sophie Jenner, Chloe Broom, Katherine Nickols and Caroline McMenamin, who despite qualifying without the loss of a set, were unfortunate to go out to top seeded Queenswood in the semi-final.

Then our own top-seeded junior girls took to the court and beat Wycombe Abbey 6-0 with the loss of only eight games between them in their semi-final, therefore earning them a final against last year’s National runners-up, St George’s Weybridge. In a hard-fought first singles match, Cathrine Hogh needed all her skill and fitness to beat her older opponent 6-4 while Ellie Knox and captain Josephine Hogh won their matches 6-2 and 6-0 to put Sevenoaks in an almost unassailable position after Round 1. Susannah Gordon lost a hard-fought singles 7-6 but joined Josephine to win their doubles 6-0, as did the first pair, therefore earning Sevenoaks a place in the National Finals, to be held at the Bolton arena at the beginning of December. In qualifying for this event, Catherine, Ellie and Josephine are in with a chance of making history as they have already won the AEGON U12 Club and County competitions and if they were to win the schools, we believe they may be the first to be champions in all three!

The following day, the boys made their debut in the finals as second seeds, knowing that if they were to progress they would have to beat the star-studded Reeds team. Captain Liam van den Hoek, Nick Brookes, Oscar Gordon-Reid and Matt Collins won their semi-final 4-2 and played some excellent tennis against the National favourites in the final. Nick Brookes won his singles and teamed up with Liam to win a brilliant doubles match but unfortunately Oscar and Matt struggled to hold on to a 5-2 lead in theirs, and they eventually went out 4-2 after a nerve-racking tie-break.

So, after the best tennis season in memory, three teams became one and it’s the Junior Girls who proudly go on to try and go one further than we’ve done before and actually win the Nationals! Go girls!