2020 Womens Gold Reports REPORTS

R1: Tesni had to grind it out from Lucy…

R1 : [8] Tesni Evans (WAL) 3-1 Lucy Turmel (ENG)  6-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-4 (52m)

The more I see young Lucy Turmel play, the more impressed I am. Not only by her squash but also by her calm, demeanour, and classy attitude on court. She reminds me of Alison Waters in fact; loves attacking but a Lady with poise and determination.

And to be honest, when I was her up 1/0 in 9m, 11/4, and 10/8 in the second game, I thought we were going to have to say goodbye to Tesni! But as ever, the Grinder in Chief decided to fight, and fight she did. Against all odds, as the Welsh had been trailing one or two points the whole game, she managed to turn the tables, and scored the next 4 points to level the match at 1 game all in 17 minutes.

Very close third game, crucial obviously confidence wise, up to 7/7, it was anybody’s game but it’s the Welsh that clinches the 12m game, 11/8 on her second attempt.

The Quiet EnglishLady struggled a bit in the 4th, and Tesni was in control throughout, 7/2, 8/3, 11/4 in 9m…

Lucy

“I felt pretty relaxed at the start of match, I was happy to get in front of her and play the ball to the front of the court as Tesni had a bit of a slow start and was not pick the ball up to the front as well as she normally does.

“My game plan was to keep doing that, get in front of her, and attack from there until she started picking the ball up to the front.

“The last game, I lost my length completely, I found myself behind her, and from that position, when Tesni was attacking, I was never going to win. I don’t think it was physical, I just lost a bit of focus, switched off for a few rallies, and against Tesni, that is just not good enough.”

Tesni

“I was pretty certain at that point, 10-8 down in the second,  that I was in serious trouble,

“She played slightly different than what I thought and took me a bit off guard. I’m just happy to be through to be honest, because for two games I was completely outplayed.

“She works with Laura Massaro, so I’m not surprised that she had a really good game plan and it took me by surprise. Where I like to play on the backhand side, she was completely out playing me, so even when I snuck the second, I thought that I had to do something different.

“I’m really happy with how I adapted, in the end the fourth game was the only chance I got to show some front shots because I didn’t have a chance before.

“My physicality is something that I’ve been struggling with since the start of the season and something I’ve been working hard on over the last block. I’m really happy because if anything I had to grind and run out, which isn’t really my style, but I think I needed that blow up and hopefully it will stand me in good stead.”