European Team Championships.
This was my debut playing for England. The men and women hold both the titles and so we were going to hopefully reatin them. We flew as a team from Stansted on Tuesday 1st May. After arriving we checked in a was due to play Spain in our first pool match on Wed morning.
There were 5 girls who went in team order they were Tania Bailey, Vicky Botwright, Jenny Duncalf, Alison Waters and myself. The team for the first match was Vicky, Alsion and me. We won easily. No-one dropping more than 3 or 4 points. The rest of the day was rest before playing 2 matches on Thursday against Denmark and France.
I was rested for the match v Denmark and went down to support the other girls. We won again fairly easily and went back to the hotel to rest before the match in the evening. I played in the match v France. This was alittle harder than the other 2 matches. However still on-one dropped more than a few points per game. After winning this match we topped our pool and was through tp the semi final. As were the men.
As I was 5 ranked I was rested for the semi and the final. We played Germany in the semi and won again 3-0 the team was Tania, Vicky and Jenny.
This set up a final with Holland as everyone had expected. The team was Tania, Vicky and Alison. Their team was Vanessa Atkinson, Annelize Naude and Margriet Huisman. Alsion went on first and won 3-0 to put us 1-0 up. Next was Tania. Vanessa knew she had to win to keep the Netherland in the match. However, Tania played brilliant and won 3-0 against the world number 8. That tied up the match and England had retained the title. Vicky beat Annelize 2-1 in the dead rubber.
After photo's and excitement the men played and won 4-0 against the Netherlands in the final. Both teams were champions again and after the presetation we went back to the hotel for the party.
As a team we went in the sea with Champagne to celebrate and then onto the party. My debut was great fun! Check out some of the photo's in the gallery.