Turning Green into gold

KIARA GREEN has won the under-17 girls' singles title at the North Wales Silver Event. The Sarnian came through a tough competition, including beating the top seed in her opening match, to take the gold medal when she was one of the Guernsey junior elite squad taken to Wrexham for the event by development officer Paul Le Tocq.

'The learning curve from this competition will have been steep for these players,' he said.

'Rarely do they play such opposition and many have never played an individual event prior to this, which always has slightly different pressures and set-up from the team events.'

Green was put in the top group of three at the start of the competition and needed to win all her matches to advance.

Against number one seed Phillipa Rogers from Cheshire in her first match, she played at a higher tempo than her opponent in a tight encounter and, with a couple of big points going her way, she came out a

15-11, 15-8 victor.

A convincing 15-8, 15-0 win over Jane Jones of Flintshire in her other group match meant Green took the top ranking spot and a bye through to the final.

There she met Amy Smith from Powys, whom Le Tocq called 'strong and technically good'.

It was a tight encounter but the Sarnian came through 15-13, 15-12.

'When Kiara stuck to her game plan, it was a good performance,' said Le Tocq.

'Finals are not about the performance but the winning,' he added.

In the same age group, Harriet Thoumine lost both her group stage matches to Welsh opposition.

However, she has another year remaining at this level and Le Tocq added: 'There was no lack of effort and application and I was very pleased with her performance.'

It was a similar story for Miranda Knight, who showed flashes of her potential despite suffering from illness.

Thoumine and Knight combined in the doubles and, despite losing three close matches, showed improvement as the tournament progressed.

In the under-15 boys' singles the following day, Le Tocq had five Sarnians to watch over.

Thomas Dawson, who has another year at this level, won one and lost two of his group matches as he fought hard throughout.

Nick Abbot showed promise as he won his opening two matches before just missing out on a semi-final with a tired performance in the third.

In a group of three, Harry Southwell narrowly lost both his encounters.

The other two Guernsey boys were in the same group and Matt Ceresa beat the younger Glenn Le Tissier 15-3, 12-15, 15-12 when they clashed.

However, he was beaten by two good UK players in deciding sets in his other matches.

Le Tissier also lost his other two matches, but impressed Le Tocq.

'Glenn has great potential although he lacks upper-body power and racket speed at the moment. He applies a good structure to his game and listens well,' the development officer said.

In the doubles, Ceresa and Abbot fought hard but found it difficult to put themselves in an attacking position.

Dawson and Le Tissier continued to struggle, being a year younger than most of their opponents, but pushed two of their three matches to a deciding set.

Southwell joined forces with an English player and narrowly missed out on qualifying from the group stage.

'They will all have taken many positives out of this weekend and will all have learnt greatly,' Le Tocq said.

'As with all sports, the pace away from the island is greater and all the players have proved that they can live at this pace but they have to do it regularly and consistently.

'I have learnt a lot about the guys as well, which I would never have found out in the comfort of Guernsey tournaments.'