Larwood Cup 2012 – by Jo Edwards

Sunday 9^th September – Royal Melbourne Tennis Club

The team

Jo Edwards

Wendy Whitehead

Annie Strange

Alison Dugdale

Stephanie Williams

Jenni Murphy

Sunday morning and up with the Larks…as the Ballarat ladies (well two of us…anyway!) head off to meet the rest of the team in Melbourne, and try to find another one of us on the way….to re-claim our trophy from the Melbourne ladies. Our start was maybe a sign of things to come however, as Rod our wonderful President ever so kindly offered his expert driving skills to take those in need down, it appears only myself and Jenni were the needy ones! We were nearly one player short before we started as Rod being hugely into all things IT, got us lost and couldn’t find Jenni anywhere in Bacchus Marsh…that’s because she was in Darley!! GPS let him down, crushed he was!

We shot off to a flying start with our “Ballmelbourneian” resident Wendy and post Birthday gal Stephanie who won our first match of the day…9/2. We were not so lucky in our next two matches however, but Annie and Alison fought hard to hang on! We then won our next two matches…yes in a row, with an impressive win by Stephanie over Rose Snell 6/0, it appears her coming of age proved most valuable! By lunch time the matches stood at 3 all, however we may have been all “souped” out it would seem, as we did not win another match…we think there was an extra ingredient in the soup! For two reasons really Jenni could not find her feet and spent most of her time falling all over the floor…that is how committed she was to getting that ball back in her last match with Alison! Annie and  I found it near impossible in our last match of the day to concentrate, as Wendy sat in the dedan with a bottle of Chardy tormenting us, AND had given our opponent a glass or two prior, which seemed to aid her abilities immensely!! Perhaps that was our mistake, we should have had one too!

So there it stands Ballarat 3/7 and handing back the Larwood Cup to Melbourne….oh the pain! But a good day had by all with lots of laughs as usual!! Bring on next year we say!!