The men’s team will contest the Grand National Finals in Bournemouth where they will be one of the top eight teams in the country battling for the coveted national title.
The Caesarean are making their third appearance in the finals in the past four years.The team will be made up of captain Pablo Giacopelli, Paul Hand, Josh Goodall, Mike Ouvarov, James Smith and Rhys Hangar.Giacopelli said: ‘We have done well to get this far once again.
From now on it is really about which team is better on the day.
I am hoping that this weekend will be the best we have ever had.
We are well prepared and are going to give it our best shot.’At the same time as the men try to win the national final, five of the club’s National Junior Club League teams will be playing both on Saturday and Sunday in the regional play-offs.The teams that will be in action on Saturday will be led by coach Chris Fancourt.
He will be overseeing the progress of the under-15 girls Abigail Hazley, Francesca Dubras and Lynsey Pitman, as well as the under-15 boys’ team of Michael Rabet, Sundeep Watts and Nick Baxter.On Sunday Rebecca Edwards will lead the under-13 girls’ team of Katie Gouyette, Alex Taylor and Vanessa Giacopelli.
Also travelling will be the U13 boys’ team of James Faudemer, Rory Topping and Jordan Roberts plus the under-11 girls’ Kirsten McArthur, Nicole Dubras and Alex Austin.All these teams have already gone through the Jersey and Guernsey stages of the competition, making this a record year for the Caesarean Club as they have been successful in getting six out of eight teams through to this stage of the competition.Giacopelli said: ‘It is great to have the juniors on the mainland at the same time as the men’s team will be playing.
This shows how much influence the success of the seniors has had on the juniors.
‘The children have done extremely well to get through so far, to become the only club in the Channel Islands with this amount of teams in the regional junior play-offs.’Should the junior teams win they will progress to the last 16 teams in the country where they will play for a place in the national finals.In the men’s competition the Caesarean Club take on David Lloyd Derby (Derbyshire), Esporta Croydon (Surrey), St George’s Hill LTC (Weybridge, Surrey), Sutton Tennis and Squash Club (Surrey), Holcombe Brook (Bury, Lancs), Sutton JTC (Surrey) and Stirling University (Stirling, Scotland).The juniors teams are sponsored by Ashburton.The men’s national side is sponsored by Bailhache Labesse.
