THE Dorset 15 and under boys' tennis team won the South West Inter-County Championships in a nail-biting climax to the competition.

Having beaten Cornwall and Hampshire in their first two matches, they came back from two matches to nil down to beat Devon 3-2, even saving a match point on the way.

At two matches down, Tim Hewitt, the Dorset number two player, fought back from match point down to win a tremendously exciting and tense final set tie-breaker against Jack Steele by 12 points to 10.

Almost simultaneously, Dorset's number one player, Jack Hartman completed victory over Steve Knowles in straight sets to force a deciding doubles tie-break.

Jack and Tim then went on to win this against Knowles and Steele by 10 points to eight, cheered on by their team mates.

The Dorset girls narrowly missed out on the final by losing to Avon in another agonising deciding doubles tie-break in the semi-final.

Lucy Ramsbottom and Emma Smith looked favourite to send Dorset into the final when they hauled themselves to match point only to be thwarted by some gutsy play by Anna Johnson and Jade Wang, eventually losing by 13 points to 11.

The girls bounced back the following day to do the double over Devon with a 3-1 victory to claim third place, which included excellent wins by Smith, Ramsbottom and Michelle Farley.

Team captain, Neil Darragh, said: "It was a great effort from the boys' team to win this competition and fight back from match point down and for the girls to come back and take third place. It was a terrific team performance and the players showed fantastic spirit."