HOLCOMBE Brook men cruised into the Aegon Team Tennis National Finals with an emphatic 6-0 victory over Rubislaw TC at Middleton.
But the Brook’s bid to become the first club to qualify two ladies teams for the Bournemouth finals in July fell just short when the second team lost a tight match to Edinburgh club David Lloyd Newhaven on the South Ribble courts.
There was everything to play for when the singles victories by Nicole Peterson and Liz Ullathorne from Hawkshaw, who had travelled up from Wimbledon where she is officiating, levelled the match at 2-2.
But when they joined together for the doubles they were up against a pairing which included British under-18s number one ranked player Emma Devine, a protege of Judy Murray. And it was the Scotland youngster who proved the dominant force in a close match decided 10-7 in a championship deciding tie-break.
And when the battle of the second ranked doubles went to an identical score, the Brook’s dual qualification ambitions were over.
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