OXFORDSHIRE 2nd suffered an 8-7 defeat at home to Sussex 2nd in their opening Division C match of their County Championship campaign.

The hosts picked up a valuable point from a desperately close contest The singles were halved, with Kathryn Schutterlin and Jack Smith winning for the home side.

Oxfordshire claimed a clean sweep of the four women’s doubles thanks to the strong pairings of Emma Crammond and Sarah Torgersen, and Claire Tait and Becky Foster.

The men’s doubles saw Oxfordshire only pick up one win from Jack Smith and Phil Sayer.

Oxon led 7-5 going into the mixed doubles, but lost all four matches.

Oxon 3rd, meanwhile, went down 9-6 away to Cambridge 3rd in Division 5D David Richardson and Adam Khimji won their singles, while Richardson then teamed up with Adrian Brown to take their only men’s doubles rubber.

Poppy Bensberg and Sarah Lloyd secured Oxon’s only women’s doubles win.

One doubles win for each Oxon mixed pair – Adrian Brown and Sarah Lloyd, and Oliver Richardson and Nadia Howden – secured a point.

Howden was unlucky in her other rubbers, losing the singles and both women’s doubles in three tight sets.

Oxfordshire's new under 13 doubles pairing of Molly Naylor and Louise Aitkins won two silver medals inside a week.

The first came in the Kent Under 13 Bronze Tournament, where they beat a host county pair 21-19 in the semi-final, before losing to Sussex sisters Amy and Sophie Cunningham in the final.

Naylor and Atkins also reached the final of the Hampshire Bronze Tournament before going down to a pair from Surrey.

Andrew Brockie (Faringdon) carried on his good form by coming third in the under 15 singles at the Winchester Bronze Tournament.

This medal gave him the clean sweep for singles medals in a month having won gold in Oxford and silver in Worcester.

Alice Atkins picked up an under 15 singles bronze medal in Winchester after losing her semi final 24-22 to Lucy Dong of Berkshire Oxon’s good fortune in Winchester continued as their under 13 team beat Hampshire 11-9. Leading the way for Oxford was Ibby Ahmed, who was unbeaten.