It was a successful weekend for Britain at the ITF Super Senior World Team Championships in Perth, Australia, with particular success for the Women’s 65 team, as they claimed the gold medal at the Kitty Godfree Cup.
The Women’s 65 team, consisting of captain and 2008 Veteran Player of the Year, Sue Hill, Jacky Boothman, Jenny Waggott and June Fisher, fought off the challenge of seven other countries to defeat Australia 2-1 in the final.
The quartet competed in a round robin group stage consisting of four teams and began their campaign with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Japan. This was swiftly followed by a 2-1 victory over South Africa before a final group tie against Australia in which they lost 1-2.
Despite their defeat against the hosts, the Britons topped the group due to a higher number of sets won and met France in the semi-finals.
A battling 2-1 victory over their French opponents set up another clash with Australia in the final of the competition.
Hill and Waggott showed great determination to win their singles matches against the home favourites. Hill repeated her win earlier in the competition by defeating former world squash champion Heather McKay, 7-6, 6-4, whilst Waggott won 6-7, 6-4, 6-2 against Margaret Wayte.
The singles victories provided an unassailable 2-0 lead with the dead doubles rubber seeing Fisher and Boothman narrowly lose 3-6, 4-6.
In total Great Britain sent 9 teams to Perth (AUS) to compete in the ITF Super Seniors World Team Championships with most teams finishing in fifth place or better.
The Women’s 60 and 70 teams claimed fourth position in the Alice Marble and Athea Gibson Cups respectively whilst the Men’s 60, 65, 70 and 80 teams finished in fifth position.
This week sees the start of the Individual championships in which a number of British players are seeded and will be hoping to continue the weekend success in the team events.
Image by Paul Arthur
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