The hosts prevailed 9-3 at Longcamps, despite almost all of their players having at least another year in the age group, in a promising display for the future of tennis in the island.
But the Jersey team were no pushovers. In the five matches where they forced a tie-break, they came out victorious in three of them.
Guernsey had already put themselves on the brink of outright victory with a strong showing in the singles.
They were led by outstanding padel siblings Chloe and Liam de la Mare, who showed that they are no slouches on the tennis court either with straight-sets wins over the respective Jersey No 1s – Issy Aldridge and Sonny Derrien.
Lara Gavey, Amelie Clark and Florence Carpenter all added wins to complete a girls’ clean sweep.
The boys’ quartet ended up splitting the wins evenly with Jersey, with Rupert Dorey adding a straightforward win, though the rubbers that the hosts did relinquish both ran very close.
Jack Bachmann’s promising start against Max Forbes faded and the contest ended in a tie-break he lost 10-3, while debutant Alex Lasenby presented a firm challenge to Ben Carnegie but fell 10-6 in the decider.
These tie-breaks proved even more prevalent in the doubles.
Aside from the prime pairing of de la Mare and Gavey taking a relatively straightforward victory, the remaining rubbers needed tie-breaks to settle.
Clark and Carpenter came out on top, as did de la Mare and Bachmann, but the closest match of all fell in Jersey’s favour as Dorey and Lasenby were edged 10-8 on the tie-break.
But the overall scoreline marked a further improvement on last year’s 8-4 win and, beyond the dominant de la Mares, Guernsey tennis stalwart Jo Robinson was pleased to see the newer and younger players ‘get the bit between their teeth’.
‘I’m just delighted for the players,’ she said.
‘They’ve been continually working on their game and they don’t get enough match practice really, so they’re really zoned in on these.
‘It could have been even better – we lost a few third-set tiebreakers.’
At the U14 inter-insular taking place in the sister isle, Guernsey also showed improvement on their previous result.
A young and inexperienced side of Sarnian boys faced a 6-0 ‘redwash’ in last year’s outing, during which the rampaging Caesareans did not drop a single set. There had been no girls’ category due to Jersey opting not to field a team.
But the girls proved key and the boys also stepped it up in a 6-6 tie last weekend, though that result did mean that Jersey retained the trophy.
The Guernsey girls only dropped a single match and so accounted for all bar one of the island’s wins.
This included Gabby Oudhof and last year’s Play Your Way to Wimbledon qualifier Svea Newark being victorious in both the singles and doubles action with their respective partners.
Daniel Martin picked up the sole Guernsey boys’ win in his singles match, taking an important 10-5 victory in a tie-break.
Fittingly for this close and competitive event, the island sides were tied on two wins apiece after the first four singles match, and it was 4-4 heading into the doubles.
