2012 Ladies Championships: Experience wins the day

The qualifying rounds for the 2012 Ladies championships took place at Eton on Sunday with 25 pairs taking part in a day that showcased the increasing strength in depth of the ladies game and some of the talented young players coming through.

The morning group stages went to plan; the only casualty amongst the eight seeded pairs were seventh seeds Annabel Griffiths and a below par Elli Hullis who narrowly lost out to Fiona Barnes and Sarah Greasley in their group. The quarter-finals produced the best Fives of the day - top seed Charlotta Cooley and Marianne Rees won well against Oxford duo Constance Mantle and Hannah Cutmore-Scott and Barnes and Greasley showed that their group win was no fluke as they pushed second seed Dom and Lia Redmond hard in the other half of the draw. A lot of pre-tournament interest had centred around the entry - for the first time in this competition - of the very talented but still very young Highgate pairs who have been dominating school competitions for the last couple of years. As expected the top two Highgate pairs qualified for the quarter-finals. Phoebe Bracken and Amira Reimer stunned third seeds Anita Ganguly and Michaela Galperti in the first game, winning 12-5, before the more experiencde pair came back to win the second by the same scoreline and hold on to win 14-11 in the decisive third game. The closest match of the day came in the final quarter-final as Karen Hird and Emily Scoones took on Eve Smith-Bingham and Aimee Paul. This was a real nailbiter, with some terrific and exciting Fives enjoyed by a decent crowd. In the end it was the older pair who scraped through 13-11, 15-14, but both Highgate girls had shown that they are rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the senior game.

Anita and Michaela's tough quarter-final had obviously taken quite a bit out of them as they were well beaten by the Redmond sisters in the first semi-final, taking Dom and Lia into the final, a fine achievement for Lia after only two or three months back in the game. Karen and Emily looked like going the same way after the effort required to win their quarter-final as they lost the first game of their semi-final 12-4 to Charlotta and Marianne. In the second game, though, they found some extra inspiration from somewhere, and the top seeded Olavian pair were mightily relieved to come out on the right side for them of a 15-14 second game scoreline to take their place in the final, which will take place at Eton in April.

The Festival competition for the pairs who came second in the morning groups, was rather disrupted by the early withdrawal of the other two Highgate pairs in the competition, but this cleared the way for former Lancing pair Juliet Browning and Sophie Palmer to win the final against Cambridge's Elana Osen and Olivia Prankerd-Smith.

The Plate for the other pairs was won by Natalie Lilienthal and Caroline Hunt, who defeated Wendy Carling and Sally Melrose in the final.

Quarter-Finals:

C.Cooley & M.Rees (1) beat C.Mantle & H.Cutmore-Scott (8) 2-0 (12-2, 12-4)

K.Hird & E.Scoones (4) beat E.Smith-Bingham & A.Paul (5) 2-0 (13-11, 15-14)

A.Ganguly & M.Galperti (3) beat P.Bracken & A.Reimer (6) 2-1 (5-12, 12-5, 14-11)

D.Redmond & L.Redmond (2) beat S.Greasley & F.Barnes 2-0 (15-11, 12-6)

Semi-Finals:

C.Cooley & M.Rees beat K.Hird & E.Scoones 2-0 (12-4, 15-14)

D.Redmond & L.Redmond beat A.Ganguly & M.Galperti 2-0 (12-1, 12-3)

Festival Final:

J.Browning & S.Palmer beat E.Osen & O.Prankerd-Smith 2-0 (12-8, 12-8)

Plate:

N.Lilienthal & C.Hunt beat W.Carling & S.Melrose 12-5