The Isle of Man’s women's tennis team travelled to Eastbourne to compete in the Over-35s County Cup recently.

The team consisted of Clare Borland, Karen Faragher, Kirree Ronan, Elena Snidal and Kathy Yamazaki.

Joining the Isle of Man team in Division 6a were West of Scotland, Staffordshire and South of Scotland.

The first fixture of the weekend was against West of Scotland. The Isle of Man team came away without a win in this fixture against a very strong side who would go on to win the division.

The tightest match was the final one of the day, with Snidal and Ronan pairing up and losing by the score of 6-7 3-6.

Despite not recording a win, the day's play did provide the team with some good grass court match play to take into the next day's fixture.

Day two against Staffordshire started with a comfortable victory for Snidal in the first single 6-0 6-2. Yamazaki followed with a second victory for the team in a match that was extended by a couple of rain delays by 6-0 5-7 10-4.

Faragher and Ronan next took to the court in the first doubles of the day, winning a hard-fought first set 6-4 and then, more convincingly, taking the second 6-1.

Ronan then paired up with Borland in the second doubles, taking a close first set by 7-5 and sealing the victory 6-3 in the second set.

Overall, all members of the team contributed to a 4-1 victory against Staffordshire, with Snidal and Yamazaki losing out in a very close match 6-3 2-6 6/10 to finish the day's play.

On the final day, the team entered the fixture knowing that play might be interrupted because of forecasted showers.

Unfortunately, these arrived early in the day and, with commencement of play delayed from 10.30am to midday, the sets were shortened to a first to a four-game format.

Snidal and Yamazaki took to the court at the same time in the singles for the team, with Snidal completed her match first and taking the win 4-2 4-3.

Yamazaki took the first set 4-1 but her opponent fought back to take the second 4-3, extending the match into a deciding 10-point tie-break, which Yamazaki took 10-3.

Borland and Ronan were next on court against an experienced doubles pair and, in a very tight first set, lost out narrowly on a tie-break.

The Isle of Man pair made a good start in the second set but could not take their chances at 2-1 to move into a 3-1 lead. The South of Scotland pair then pressed on to take the victory 4-2 as drizzle started to fall.

With this further rain delay, it was declared by the referee that a result would be taken following completion of the first three matches, therefore the Isle of Man took the overall win 2-1.

This meant the team finished in second place in the group behind a victorious West of Scotland, with South of Scotland coming in third and Staffordshire fourth.

The team look forward to competing on the grass courts of Eastbourne once again next year.