A productive but a very long day for 13 year old Charlotte Bardsley. The first group matches started at 9am and she was still competing at 9:30pm in the doubles final. So after more than 12 hours of competition in what was a very warm sports arena, she came away from Ponds Forge with 3 national finals medals to add to her growing collection. Charlotte who competed in both U13 and U14 girls singles, came eventually 3rd in both of those events. She got through to both quarter-finals stages without dropping a set but then had more work to do in the quarters, coming through both with good 3-1 wins.
She lost out in a very tight semi-final to the eventual winner in the U13 and the same also occurred in the U14. In the doubles she made it to the final with her partner, Alice Dillon from Lancashire. This was the first time they had played together as a doubles pair and they quickly established an effective partnership, comfortably getting to the final where they just came short in the end.
Harry Fletcher competed in the U11 boys singles for his first time at the nationals. He was in a tough group and despite some great table tennis he wasn’t able to get into the knock-out stages of the competition this time.