The most acute of lines between promotion and a drop to the level below at the LTA Summer County Cup was once again brought home to the Northamptonshire men’s tennis squad at Oxford last week.
Non-playing skipper Mark Taylor has been in the business long enough to know the potential pitfalls of five days of intensive group tennis in the searing heat so perhaps the relegation suffered once again – back to Group Seven next year – was not a total revelation.
Yet the final analysis is cruel, and doesn’t do justice to the preparation work and effort put in on court.
Top this with the fact Northants actually defeated Northumberland on the Tuesday and Staffordshire on the Friday, both by 6-3 margins, with Taylor’s haunting words: “It is very rare to be relegated when you win on two days.
Then also combine the fact the 5-4 loss to Devon on the Wednesday was one of those which, taken to the other extreme, could not only have been a victory but a comfortable one as well.
Taylor explained: “All three of our pairs that day had matches we could easily have won. Jack (Haworth) and Ben (Foster) had a set point in a tie-break and lost and were then 4-1 up in the second and lost.
“Alex (Halsey) and Nikki (Rae) were 6-4, 2-0 up and lost a match while Charlie (Swallow) and Jonny (Searle) served for a match in the third set and lost two third set tie-breaks.
“Overall, we should never have gone down.
“If we had beaten Devon and, say, just picked up one rubber on Thursday against Buckinghamshire who walloped everybody and beat us 9-0, we could have gone up.”
Northants’ fate was sealed by Northumberland’s final day 5-4 victory against Oxfordshire, a result which should never have happened on the form of the previous four days, as the host county were still on course for promotion behind Bucks.
At least there were bright spots.
Rae brought the benefits of a first academic year in America back home to his native county by bringing a positive note to proceedings and won seven matches during the week, mostly with Halsey, although he picked up two on the final day with Foster when pairs were shuffled around.
It was a tally matched by Swallow, mostly in tandem with Searle, although he had a first-day final round win with Kevin Hoey.
Taylor concluded: “We had a cracking team out but we always knew it was going to be tough.”
While Rae will return for his second academic yearat the University of Iowa at the end of August, Halsey now works at the Virgin Active Club at Hamilton, near Glasgow.