On Wednesday the 11th March, Hatfield visited Cambridge in the last match of the 2019/20 East Anglia Pennant season. Coming into the match Cambridge were top of the table on 21 points with Hatfield in second on 15 points, meaning that Hatfield could take the league to a playoff match if they won 0-6.

The evening started with Alan Sharpe’s singles. Alan started slowly with his opponent making very few errors, at 1-5 Alan started to gain some momentum and picked up a couple games, but he fell short, losing 3-6. Up next was Sonja Badenhorst, who played very elegantly to race to a 5-2 lead, when her opponent started to make a comeback. Many long rallies later, at 5-5 Sonja kept her cool to win 6-5. This ensured the pennant would be coming home to CURTC, this was a fitting way for the pennant to won as Sonja was without a doubt the MVP of the tournament; winning all of her matches. Next was Andrew Barker who battled hard in a close fought contest, with the match going to 5-5, 40-all game point, Andrew narrowly lost 5-6. Richard Jones was next in the last singles match of the evening. Richard struggled to find his form whilst his opponent was playing incredibly well, Richard ended up losing 0-6. CURTC were 1-3 down after the singles and were under real threat of losing their unbeaten status. Andrew and Alan had their doubles next and played well together to win 8-3. The final match of the season came down to Sonja and Richard, who played in a very close fought contest, narrowly winning 8-7. This meant that the evening concluded 3-3, with CURTC finishing the season unbeaten!

Hatfield were great opponents and all the tennis was played in a good spirit, which resulted in a thoroughly enjoyable evening for all.

Andrew Barker (EAP Captain)