Poland Tennis Tournament 2022

On 7^th September, 6 Metro players and 1 Metro staff member met up at Stansted airport to start their journey to Gdansk for the Friendly Blind Tennis Tournament.

These Metro players were made up of Helen Potter (B3), Amanda Green (B3), Oliver Cousins (B3), Anil Kanani (B2), Tracy Compton (B1) and Naqi Rizvi (B1), along with staff member Lucy Simper.

Having arrived at Gdansk airport, the group headed to the tennis conference, where the future of blind and visually impaired tennis was discussed, along with areas of development. Lucy and Amanda did a speech representing the UK along with Metro Blind Sport. This included the history of the sport, where the UK is up to and areas for development going forward. The conference gave a great insight into where the sport is currently at in different countries.

The conference is on YouTube below

There were 78 players playing in the tournament across 3 sight classifications- B1, B2 and B3 split into male and female players. These players were from countries worldwide, including Mexico and Lithuania, just to name a couple. All players and officials stayed in the same hotel in Gdansk, creating a good chance to mingle with players from other countries and build friendships.

On Thursday 8^th September, at 9 am the bus arrived to take the 78 players to the tennis courts, and the first round of matches began. Each player was competing in a round-robin within their category. Metro finished off the day with 3 wins and 3 losses.

On Friday 9^th September, the round-robin matches continued. Once finished, Naqi Rizvi, Anil Kanani and Helen Potter had all finished among the top two players in their group, meaning they were through to the next rounds.

Photos from the Poland Tournament 2022 are below!

On Saturday 10^th September, the doubles and next rounds commenced. This resulted in some great tennis. Helen Potter and Amanda Green won their doubles in a nail-biting tiebreak. Naqi Rizvi and Tracy Compton were pipped to the post by the Lithuanian pair in a friendly doubles match. In the singles Anil Kanani, unfortunately, lost his quarter-final, however, Helen Potter and Naqi Rizvi were through to the semi-finals.

All the players finished with a position for their category, they were as follows- Tracy came 5^th in the B1 singles, Oliver came 9^th in the B3 men’s singles, Amanda came 6^th in the B3 women’s and Anil came 5^th in the B2 men’s category.

Semi-finals and finals day had arrived, and Metro was ready.

Helen and Naqi both played spectacularly to win their semi-finals, meaning Metro had two finals to cheer on. Helen started her B3 women’s final first, with the Metro crew behind her.

Helen played an amazing match, winning the final 4-0, 4-0 against her opponent who was from Italy. Naqi was then the final match on, with a large crowd he went on to win 4-3 (11-9), 4-2 against his Italian opponent.

With two gold medals in the bag and a great time had by all, we set off to the airport to come home with a big smile on our faces.

Lots of new friendships were formed, and lots of great tennis was played. We even managed a lovely trip to the local beach and park. The trip will be remembered with fond memories, and we look forward to keeping in contact with those connections made.

All matches across the week can be viewed on YouTube via on this channel-link

Report by Lucy Simper

Congratulations to all of those who took part.

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