I recently travelled to Seville to play in the Spanish Junior (U19) with players from all across Europe. Unfortunately my doubles player was injured and couldnt go and so I was then paired with a Portugese girl who couldnt speak much English..it was a new experience for me..we played quite well together but lost to a strong Spanish pair in the first round. In the mixed I was playing with my U19 partner Ryan McCarthy, we did well to win our first round and then unluckily came up against a top Dutch pair who I had previously lost to twice this season already, we played very well and fought back in both sets but couldnt beat them and lost 21-19, 21-17 after a very positive performance.

A few days later I was off again to Amsterdam, this time part of a larger England group, to play in the Dutch junior which is known as one of the top European U19 tournaments and Asian players from Malaysia and Hong Kong come over and play it. We were quite unlucky in the doubles draw having to play the German 3/4 seeds first round, me and Lauren did well and we felt we actually might have even played a bit better on another day but lost 21-14 21-16. In the mixed me and Ryan played an U17 Belgium pair in the first round and managed to come through in three sets after having a loss of concentration in the second. The next day we had to play the French 5/8 seeds, we knew this would be very tough as they are a well established and strong pair who have been on the circuit for years. We put up a very good performance and we felt we were actually unlucky not to take the second set, losing 21-14 21-19.

Next up for me is U17 nationals in Hatfield this weekend and the weekend after is the U19 nationals in my hometown of MK!

This weekend I had the U17 nationals which is the biggest domestic tournament by far in the U17 calender! After winning both the doubles and mixed last year the pressure was on to retain my titles, going into the weekend I was unbeaten in doubles with my partner Holly Smith and in mixed me and Darren we were inconsistent but capable of beating the best pair on our day. When the draw came out I was top seed in doubles and 4th seed in mixed meaning we would face the top seeds in the semi finals if we won our matches on the Saturday, this wasnt what we wanted!

I came through Saturday unscathed so tried to get as much rest as I could for the following day. In the semis of the doubles we played very well and managed to beat a good pair quite comfortably, in the final we were suprised to come up against an U15 pair of Jess Hopton and Lynlette Aung who had played very well throughout the weekend… but we were still very much expected to win and so the pressure was on, we didnt play our best but came out on top winning 21-12 and 21-13 to get our first national title together and my third doubles title in a row!

In the mixed semis we had a very, very long match against the top seeds Rhys and Holly, we were quite slow to come out in the first set and ended up losing 21-17 after a fightback at the end. The second set we were quite demoralised and they got on top of us and were up 11-6, but we managed to play very well and stuck together and turned it round to win 25-23 after some very tense moments at the end! The third set was neck and neck, they were up 11-10 at the interval and even after a big fightback from 20-16 down to 20-19 we couldnt quite get there and lost 21-19 after a very long and hard match. We were quite gutted but knew we had played well so were happy!

This weekend is the U19 nationals where I hope to play well with my regular partners of Ryan and Lauren, wish me luck!