Marsh Apawamis Open
After making the short trip from Greenwich to Rye (15mins) I was feeling quite good. I'd picked up abit of a cold but wasn't feeling too bad.I hit at the courts on Tues, Wed, Thurs preparing for my first round match against Vicky Botwright on Friday at 5pm.
When Friday came round I practised in the morning and went to have lunch. I watched a couple of earlier matches and went back to the house where I relaxed for a while. I went back down to the courts at 4pm for my 5pm match. Warmed up well and felt good. I made a great start and was feeling good, vicky looked abit nervous in the first and I tried to take advantage. I won the first game 9-6 after being 5-1 up. The second was tougher, I didn't play so well and lost it 9-4. The third was much better, I upped the pace and tried to cut the errors out, it was much better. I won that 9-5. The 4th was also good. I went up 6-3 and then went abit flat in my movement and Vicky got back into it. At 6-6 I made a big push and went to 8-6 and won it on my first match ball. 3-1 was a great result and really pleased to be through to play Nicol at 1pm Saturday.
I practised the morning of my match and then watched the first match of Natalie Grainger v Vanessa Atkinson. I warmed up well and was feeling good. The match went well. I started great taking the first game from Nicol 9-3. Playing great drop shots and forcing errors from Nicol. The second was really tight from the off. I lost it 9-7 and it was crucial. Unfortunately I lost the third and fourth 9-4, 9-5. It was close until the middle of each of the two games but it slipped away from me. Overall I thought I played well. It was a 70min match and I feel I pushed her all the way and it was the closest i've ever got to beating her.
Really pleased with my two events in the U.S. Beating the world number 4 and 6 was great and I pushed the world number 1 hard. Looking forward to the British Nationals now in Feb.