Top seed Anna Chesca lifts county singles title
FOUR local players featured in three finals of this year’s Tennis Leicestershire County Closed Championships at the Leicestershire Tennis and Squash Club.
The event was not held in 2020 due to the pandemic, but all this year’s draws were well supported by players.
The Ladies Singles Final saw Loughborough Lawn Tennis Club’s Anna Michelle Chesca, the top seed, face number six seed Maisie Smith of the home club.
Chesca was runner up to Emily Pollard, this year’s number three seed, in the 2019 final. The pair met in this year’s semi-finals, and it was Chesca who was the winner on this occasion.
In the final Smith started the brighter of the two players in the final, breaking Chesca’s serve twice to take the first set 6-3 in 38 minutes.
The second set was a close affair, with two service breaks by each player, before the set went into a tiebreak, which was the turning point in the match.
Chesca completely dominated the tiebreak and took it without dropping a point.
This dominance continued into the final set with the Loughborough player racing to a 5-0 lead. Smith rallied by holding serve and breaking to go 2-5, but Chesca steadied and broke serve again to run out a winner 3-6 7-6 6-2.
Chesca was also seeded one in the Ladies Doubles with fellow Loughborough Lawn Tennis Club member Lilia Boukikova, reaching the final and facing number four seeds Charlotte Griffin of Melton Mowbray Tennis Club and Emily Rodbourne of Charnwood Lawn Tennis Club.
Five breaks of serve in the first set eventually saw Chesca and Boukikova take it 6-4. Back came the Melton/Charnwood pairing to win the second set 6-2. An early break of Boukikova’s serve was followed by Chesca’s serve being broken to give the number four seeds a 4-1 lead. Griffin and Rodbourne never looked like letting this slip and took the match in three sets 4-6 6-2 6-2.
The Mixed Doubles Final was between number four seeds Matthew Richmond of Carisbrooke Tennis Club and Charlotte Griffin, in her second doubles final this year, and the number three seeds Sam Preston of Carisbrooke and Beccy Scrivins of Loughborough Lawn Tennis Club.
Preston and Scrivins raced to a 4-0 lead before Richmond and Griffin rallied, but the early lead was maintained to give the third seeds the first set 6-3.
The second set saw Preston and Scrivins race away again. This time there was no rally by their opponents, albeit it took six match points for them to claim the title 6-3 6-1.
The Saturday of Finals weekend saw an exhibition of Wheelchair Tennis organised by the Tournament Committee and local Wheelchair Tennis Coach and player Mark Langeveld.
Tournament Committee Chairman Alison Ison, reviewing the tournament, said “We were concerned that there would be a considerable drop in players taking part in the whole event after last year’s event had to be cancelled.
“I’m glad to say this was not the case, and it was great to see both fresh faces and familiar ones all taking part in what was a successful tournament. We were really pleased to have a Wheelchair Tennis Exhibition. We are hoping to see a growth in Wheelchair Tennis players in the tournament.”