National's Snippets

Posted 16:10 16 February 2009 in Coach's Musings

Well I know you are all desperate to know how I got on in my next round.

Well I lost. Yes, I know, not good. It was 9-7 in the fifth and 1 hour 42 mins long. Bring on American scoring for the over 35's! Annoying as it is to play for that long (my longest ever match) and lose, it gave me enough points to get in the over 35 England team, so I'm chuffed about that and the pain was all worth it.

A funny thing happened in the quarters of the women's main event, which I thought you might like to hear about.

Well Sarah-Jane Perry, by a series of coincidences found herself through to this round. I coach her, and was aware that she may be rather anxious that she was going to play on the show court, in front of a sizeable, paying crowd againt Laura-Jane Lengthorn (world #8). Was she going to be able to put up some kind of decent fight?

She made her way out of the smoke and lights, with pumping tunes, and looked a little embarrassed by the whole affair.

After the compere had introduced both the players, and had indicated that the warm-up should start, her dad thought he spotted a potential photo opportunity of both the players.

Parents wandering onto the show courtto take a snap shot wasn't in the promoter's plan though, and he was very quickly bellowed at to get down. It was a bit like trying to go down onto the pitch at Wembley and take a picture of the FA Cup final teams!! After a 1-2 second period when he weighed up his options, SJ's dad decided to get down from the court, and whilst being berated by the promoter, and with all eyes on him, he proceeded to trip on a step and almost fall over, just to top off the episode.

Probably not what SJ needed before she'd even warmed up,but it didn't affect her, as she was hitting the ball peachily, and played out of her skin.