words by Damian Burgess
It has been quite a busy few months for Tesni Evans, after Winning the Ladies A event in the north east Wales Open Tesni went straight to London to play at the Coronation Open 2010, $10,000 WISPA event. Tesni then won the Ladies Natioanal Title at the Sport Wales National Centre in Cardiff and has just returned from a successful competition in Edinburgh, Scotland.
In London Tesni played a number of Ladies who are ranked above her on the professional circuit, and had to come through two rounds of qualifying before she played her first round match. “I had to qualify and i was just wishing for a good draw and when the draw came out i felt i had a good chance, ” said Tesni. Tesni reached the quarter-finals of that event losing 3-2 in an hour long match “I had nothing left in the tank after coming from 2 – 0 down”. This great run and great results shot Tesni up the rankings 90 places to number 134. (December WISPA Rankings)
In January Tesni won her first National Title at the SWNC in Cardiff, beating Hannah Davies, fellow north Wales player and good friend. “I was so happy to win the title of Welsh Champion being my first one! I knew i had a chance seeing the draw and going in to the tournament being favourite but its never that easy.” Tesni had to play Sasha Cocks and Abbey Hicks on her way to the Final, Hannah was not seeded to meet Tesni in the final but Hannah played a great game against number 2 seed Beth Winstanley to set up the all north final “Hannah in the final, having played her many a time (all the time) i came through and won it. Very happy to win and hope to get some more along the way”
The Artemis Open Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland is the biggest BSPA event of the year and this year was no different. Tesni would again have to qualify to make it to the first round of matches. Again i had to qualify but this tournament was a very strong one so i was just wishing to get through to main draw having seen the people in qualifying!
She did not disappoint, getting through to the qualifying finals Tesni was drawn against Julianne Coutice from England, Tesni had lost to Courtice in the U19 Final of the Junior British Championships 3 – 1. This was also a prelude to the British National Championships later this month where the pair meet in the qualifying stages again. “I’ve played Julianne a lot and lost the last time 3-1 in the British Closed Final. I wanted revenge!”
Tesni did get revenge coming through 3 – 2 after being 2 – 1 down and said “that’s 1 – 1, I guess our match at the Nationals next week is the decider” Tesni was now in the main draw of the event and was unlucky to draw number 2 seed Orla Noom from Holland. “i know Orla is a good player and i was just going to dig in and make her work for it and i did, i lost 3-1 playing well but she was just to good in the end closing out the match.” Tesni lost to Orla Noon the number 2 seed 3 – 1 but kept the Dutch lady on court for 48 minutes, Orla went on to become runner up in the event loosing 3 – 0 to number 1 seed Dominique Lloyd-Walter from England.
In the January WISPA rankings Tesni had moved up one place to 133 in the World, a great achievement already at such a young age. When I asked Tesni about life on the WISPA tour she said “I am really enjoying playing on the Wispa tour. I am getting to meet new people and playing different people from different places who are of really good standard is good and is hopefully improving my game”
Tesni now heads to Manchester to play in the British National Championships, not the easiest of qualifying draws for our own Welsh National Champion but after coming through qualifying in other draws we hope to see Tesni Evans’ name in the first round in Manchester. Tesni will again play Julianne Courtice in her first match on Monday 7th February, if Tesni wins she then plays Kirsty McPhee of Ponterfract. Good luck to Tesni Evans and of course all of the Welsh players heading up to Manchester this month. www.nationalsquashchamps.co.uk
In other WELSH WISPA NEWS
In November last year Deon Saffrey, World number 109 and Welsh Ladies number 1 was seeded 8 in the Santiago Open in Spain, Deon amazingly played out of her skin to reach the Final of the $6,000 WISPA event, losing to number 4 seed Olga Ertlova of the Czech Republic. Olga played Tesni Evans in the first round and on the way to winning the final beating number 1 seed Nouran El Tourky of Egypt.
Deon is in the main draw in Manchester for the National Championships, she plays number 1 seed and a repeat of her first round last year against Jenny Duncalf who is also number 2 in the World.
No comments:
Post a Comment