This years Baxter county inter-league tournament took place on Sunday 12th Jan at Christleton. This is the event for each league's elite players. This year was a three way contest between Crewe, Chester and Wirral. Each league plays the other two, and the matches are held concurrently such that players off court time is minimised and overall results are mostly undecided until close to the last games. So it proved to be this year with each league able to beat the others up to the last few events. As it turned out, a very close set of finishes meant that Crewe having beaten Chester, and Chester beating Wirral, the deciding factor would be who came out on top in the Crewe/Wirral match. That particular match hung on the outcome of the final event. A win for Crewe would mean the whole tournament for Crewe, a win for Wirral and we went to a complex count back. Steve Pickering and Ina Lungova triumphed meaning Crewe took the title.
Our team was captain Kara Robinson - Canute, Richard Jakeman - Canute, Ina Lungova- Whitfield, Emma Mclauchlan - Whitfield, Jess Hogan - CEGELEC, Iain Owen, Welsh Row, Zoe Raiswell - Welsh Row, Steve Pickering - Welsh Row, Matt Riley - Goostrey, AndyMartin - Welsh Row
In more detail: The matches comprised 11 events - ladies singles, mens singles, mens doubles, ladies doubles and mixed doubles.
In the Crewe/Chester match Ina Lungova won her singles 2-0, but Steve Pickering went down in best of three 2-1.
In the ladies doubles Emma Mclauchlan and Kara Robinson won 2-0, Zoe Raiswell and Jess Hogan went down 2-0
In the mens doubles Matt Riley and Richard Jakeman won 2-1, Iain Owen and Andy Martin won 2-0
In the mixed doubles events: Steve and Ina won 2-1, Matt and Emma won 2-0, and Andy Martin and Jess Hogan won 2-0, Richard Jakeman and Kara Robinson won 2-0 whilst sadly Iain Owen had to pull out of the day with injury meaning his and Zoe's event was conceded.
The outcome was therefore a 7-4 win for Crewe.
In the Crewe/Wirral Match Matt won his singles 2-1 whereas Emma went down 2-0
In the mens doubles Steve and Richard won 2-0, Iain and Andy conceded
In the ladies doubles Zoe and Jess lost 2-0 whereas Ina and Kara won 2-1
In mixed doubles Steve and Ina won 2-0, Matt and Emma won 2-0, Andy and Jess lost 2-0, Richard and Kara won 2-0, Iain and Zoe had to concede.
This match was therefore a Crewe win 6-5 and ultimately was the decider on the day.
Well done to our team who did us proud. A special mention for Kara Robinson who skippered on the day and was instrumental in the selection and set up. Kara also provided a large bag of goodies to sustain the team comprising (on the good side) Bananas for sustenance and (the less good side) chocolate marshmallows - but who's worried. Crewe League chairman David Sumner attended to provide support and ended up presenting the trophies as all of the Cheshire dignitaries were away playing an ICC masters weekend. So we presented to ourselves!
A team photo and scoresheet are attached