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Metro Blind Sport European Friendly Tennis Tournament

On Sunday 12th June 2022, Metro Blind Sport hosted a European Friendly Tennis Tournament at Islington Tennis Centre.

Twenty-eight B1-B4 players arrived to play singles and doubles matches. This included nine players from Poland, seven from Italy, one from Spain and the remainder from across South England.

We are grateful to Real Eyes Sport for helping the Italian athletes participate in the tournament and a huge thank you for the photos!

Metro had hired four tennis courts for 6 hours, so it was shaping up to be a busy yet fun afternoon of tennis. The tennis began with singles, with all players put into boxes, playing twenty-minute timed matches.

Each player played each other person within their box, and the quality of the tennis was exceptional. Once the winner of each box was determined, finals took place to establish court winners.

Photo from the Event

Photos courtesy of Real Eyes Sport.

Results Below

Congratulations to Metro member Oliver Cousins, who won the singles title on court 2. Davide Vaglia, from Italy, put in an excellent performance to take the title on court 3. Metro member Helen Potter stole the show on court 4.

The B1 singles were extremely close, but Giancarlo Berganti, from Italy, did extremely well and won the title.

After a quick photo break, it was time to get to the doubles. Unfortunately, the Polish group had to leave to catch their flight home, resulting in 9 pairs playing in the doubles. Like the singles, the standard was incredibly high.

After all the box matches had finished, spectators gathered around to watch the B1 and B2-4 finals.

In the B2-4 doubles final, in second place, we had Anil Kanani and Helen Potter, who were pipped at the post by Davide Viglianti and Gianluca Marini. In an extremely close B1 doubles final, Lara Cotton and Carlos Arbos Ginard beat Tracy Compton and Giancarlo Berganti 6-4.

A special thank you to the twelve volunteers who came along to support the tournament; Metro couldn’t have done it without you!

It was a great day for players to meet and play against new players. Many conversations were had, including discussing the future of VI tennis and upcoming tennis tournaments (watch this space).

Metro looks forward to continuing to strengthen relationships with other VI tennis clubs and centres across Europe (and the rest of the world).

report by Lucy Simper

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Photo above of Brenda Cassell and Chris Baily – original article by tennisfoundation

Chris Baily and Brenda Cassell added more history to the British challenge in Spain this week as they became the first Great Britain vision impaired tennis team players to reach finals on the international stage.

After making it through his round-robin pool without dropping a game Baily won his B3 men’s singles semi-final against Ireland’s Willem Roode 6-3.

In a fast-paced and energetic match both players produced some fantastic shots at key times in one of the best matches of the tournament so far. However, Bailey gained the crucial break of serve to set up a meeting with Grzegorz Korpinski of Poland in Thursday’s final.

Brenda Cassell also went into the knockout stages of the women’s B2 singles having not lost a game in her pool matches. She maintained her perfect record with a clinical 6-0 quarter-final victory over Mayumi Kita.

Cassell dropped her first games of the week in her semi-final, but still held on to beat Adrianna Sanchez of Mexico 6-3. After going two games down Cassell finished with a flourish. She won five games in a row and ended with a good serve to book her place in Thursday’s women’s B2 singles final against Chizuko Hara.

Wendy Glasper’s bid to also reach the women’s B2 singles final started well when she beat Marta Hiniesto 6-2 in her quarter-final. Glasper controlled the match with great accuracy and spin, but her winning sequence came to an end in her semi-final, which Hara won 6-0 to set up her meeting with Cassell.

Glasper’s competition came to an end with a tense bronze medal play-off against Sanchez. In a match that ebbed and flowed Glasper managed to come back from 4-1 down to force a tie-break.

However, Sanchez found the shots that mattered at the right time to win 7-6(3), with Glasper finishing her international debut as the fourth best B2 female in the world

After making it through his round-robin pool David Deas saw his men’s B2 singles challenge come to an end in his quarter-final. In an entertaining contest Deas lost out to South Korea’s Bye Ongin 6-3.

After becoming the first Great Britain player to win a match on the international stage earlier this week, Nikhil Nair‘s men’s B1 singles challenge came to an end with a 6-1 loss against Oho of Japan, who returned a high percentage of the Brit’s serves.

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Metro European Friendly Tennis Tournament