British Closed.
The competition this year is in Manchester at the National squash Centre. My second home. It's where I do most of my training and play alot of matches. It also means I can stay at home through the week.
My first round is against Laura Mylotte of Ireland. I've played her before and so know she's a good player. However due to injury she's been out f action for a while. The match finally came round after what seemed like weeks of build up and I played really well. Laura was alittle off the pace but I thought I played well, moved well and took the ball in short well. I won 9/1 9/1 9/0 in the shortest of all the 1st round matches. This set up a quarter final match with Vicky Botwright.
I had a rest day on Thursday and so made my way down to practise on the glass court where all the quarters are being played.
Friday..... I went down to practise and then made my way home to chill out for a while. My match wasn't until 7.30pm. I got back down to the courts at about 6pm and prepared well. Although I was alittle nervous I played very well. Vicky was more nervous than I was. It's hard for both of us because we're both local players and had alot of people there supporting. I played well and the beginning of each game was close and I pulled away towards the end of each game to win 3-0 9/5 9/5 9/5. I'm really happy to be in my 1st semi final.
Saturday..... today i'm playing Alison Waters. She's had a tough route through the competition but is ranked one place higher then me so it'll be a tough match.
We went on court at 5.45pm and I made a good start in the first game. I was 6-4 up and although I went 8-6 down I made a good come back to win 10-8 and was feeling good. Alison stepped it up in the second and after a few hard rallies the game ran away from me and I lost 9/2. She was playing well and my length was dropping alittle short. I tried to go on and re-group but she was playing well. The third was tighter than the second game but I still lost it 9/4. I came off and wanted to make a big push for the 4th game.... it was all or nothing now!!! I made a great start and played well to take a 7-4 lead. Unfortunaely Alison didn't fancy a fifth and although it was a long and hard fourth game she came back to take it 9/7. I was disappointed but felt I played well and am happy with my performance this week. Looking forward to next year.
Thanks to everyone who came down to support me over the week.