Having reached the semi-finals as genuine title hopefuls, an all-Sarnian Channel Islands mixed quartet lost a heart-breaking shootout against Surrey, who then beat Yorkshire in similarly close fashion to take the crown.
Meanwhile, the CI men went out in the quarter-finals after losing their own shootout 11-9 to North Scotland, while the all-Guernsey women’s team went out at the same stage after encountering reigning champions and eventual winners Essex.
These teams were dwarfed by other counties in population terms. Although they were competing under the CI banner, the squad was in fact almost entirely a Guernsey affair, with Aaron Higgins going in the men’s No 2 pairing as the sole Jersey player.
Captain Olly Cull had shared an ambition to go big in the mixed, where he joined Lauren Watson-Steele and the teenage de la Mare siblings in a talented group that have made their mark in the LTA’s national rankings over recent years.
‘We came in with high hopes – this is the best team we’ve got out in a while,’ Cull said.
‘We thought we had quite a good chance to win the mixed.’
With Cull joining Chloe de la Mare at No 1, backed up by her brother Liam partnering Watson-Steele, they got off to a flying start with 2-0 victories against Hertfordshire and Middlesex.
Their top pairing backed up their earlier success against Surrey but a loss at No 2 brought it to a shootout, which their rivals edged 11-8.
‘It’s annoying when you’re so close but you lose out by a point or two,’ Cull said.
The CI men had Cull playing alongside Liam de la Mare at No 1, followed by Cameron Gomes with Higgins, and they topped Group Five without dropping a rubber.
They enjoyed 2-0 victories against Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire and Somerset.
But in the first round of eliminations, North Scotland’s top pairing took the win and the inter-island combination of Gomes and Higgins just about kept the team in it through edging a match tie-break. Shootout heartbreak prevented them from getting any further.
Led by de la Mare and Watson-Steele, with a secondary pairing of Chantelle de la Mare and Katie Inder, the women came so close to an unblemished run through Group Four.
They beat Berkshire and Nottinghamshire 2-0, but Cheshire proved more stubborn, taking the second match and winning a shootout to top the group.
Guernsey nevertheless reached the knockouts, but they were thrown right into it against Essex, who won with both combinations.
That notably included Chloe de la Mare being on the opposite side of the net to regular partner Rosie Quirk – with whom she had climbed to the top of the LTA women’s rankings in the spring.
Overall, Cull called it a ‘really fun weekend’ and ‘really good event’ and did appreciate the significance of their victories against larger counties using a team drawn from Guernsey’s population, plus Jersey’s Higgins.
‘The rest of the team are from Guernsey and playing against some of the best counties in the UK,’ he said.
‘We were pretty close to doing quite well. It shows that Guernsey padel is really on the map and we are a bit of a force to be reckoned with.
‘It will only get better from here.’
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