SQUASH: Main sisters dominate in Ipswich

A record number of youngsters travelled from across the six counties of Herts, Beds Cambs, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk in an effort to win the coveted titles.

It was an early start on Saturday for the Girls U11 tournament with Main sisters, Lily and Natalie, playing their first match at 9am.

They dispatched their respective opponents with relative ease, albeit Lily took a while to get into her stride against Lara Newton, before running out a comfortable winner.

Both played a further two ties and while fatigue reduced the quality of squash, they triumphed in each game 3-0.

In the U13s competition, Sophia John started appreciably later and was left to rue missed opportunities and poor decision making as she went down 3-2 in a titanic struggle against Essex’s Hannah Morley.

The defeat could prove very costly indeed with the regional training squads and teams being announced this week, although she did close out the day with a comfortable 3-0 win.

In line with all teenage boys Sam McCoy in the BU17 age group started much later, but ran out a comfortable 3-0 winner in his first round and backed that up with an identical score in the second round on Saturday night to progress to the semi-finals.

Sunday again saw an early start for the Main sisters, but they set about their opponents with the same vigour as Saturday and quickly triumphed to face each other in the final.

It was elder sister Lily who raced out of the blocks, winning the first 11-0. However, Natalie showed amazing resilience to regroup and take the next two as Lily struggled to find the same consistency in serve and weight of shot.

The fourth game was nip and tuck all the way until an unforced error meant that the title was heading back to Luton with Natalie.

John waltzed through her plate semi-final and then beat Essex’s Poppy Smee-Hotene with ease to take the plate final.

Sam McCoy faced number one seed Aaron Allpress from Essex in his semi-final and while he battled hard, went down 3-1.