Becky Scrivins from the Loughborough Tennis on their opening fixture of National Open Midlands 2011 against Lady Bay Tennis Club.
As all of our team members are university students, and with it being the Easter holidays, we travelled back to Loughborough for our first match of the Team Tennis season. Jodie had the furthest to travel, driving all the way up from Dorset on Sunday morning. We had arrived early so that we could have a good warm up before the match began. We had little knowledge of our opponents from Lady Bay, but on their arrival we recognised some familiar faces. After seeing their team warm-up we knew that this was going to be a tough match and this proved to be the case.
Loughborough Open Women, Team Tennis National Open 2011 (L-R) Ena Ankutse, Becky Scrivins, Rachael Hall, Jodie Bratchell
The match started at 2pm, and as we had 4 courts, all the singles went on at the same time. After a slight slip of concentration in the second set, I won my match 6-0, 6-3. Jodie did brilliantly to win her match 6-4, 6-4, after coming back from 3-0 down in both sets! Rachael Hall, playing at number 1, lost to a very tough opponent 2-6, 3-6. Ena Ankutse had an extremely close first set, eventually losing it 9-7 in a tie-break. However she fought back, winning the second set comfortably 6-2. Unfortunately she went on to lose the third set 6-1, bringing the match score level, to 4-4.
Loughborough's Jodie Bratchell in action
We went into the doubles, knowing we had to win both matches to avoid a dreaded tie-break shootout. Jodie and I made a good start to the doubles, serving and covering the net well, we won 6-0, 6-2. The next doubles match was highly competitive, Rachel and Ena played fantastically to win 6-2, 6-3, and to secure us with an 8-4 victory!
Loughborough's Rachael Hall and Ena Ankutse in doubles action
View the results from the match
This was a great start to our Team Tennis season, with everyone playing really good tennis. We hope to keep up this form, and look forward to our next match on the 8th of May away at David Lloyd Cardiff!
Result: Loughborough Tennis beat Lady Bay 8-4
Loughborough Tennis team: Rachael Hall, Ena Ankutse, Becky Scrivins and Jodie Bratchell
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