Hannah Hicks has risen to number five in both the Junior Girls and Senior Women’s English TTA ranking lists and has just returned from her latest Grand Prix at Medway, having reached two finals and one semi-final.

She lost to Katy Shuing in the Women’s Open in three sets but made Katy work very hard to beat her. She also lost in the Women’s band one event to team mate Sanja Clements (Dorset) in three. Hannah’s best achievement was to beat Lou Mehein, one of the top Chinese players, three sets to one in the semi-finals of the Women’s U21 before losing in the final to Karina Lafevre (Cleveland) who is ranked three in England. Her next tournament is the Salisbury Grand Prix on February 14/15, at the Five Rivers Leisure Centre, Hulse Road, Salisbury.

Locally, the league staged the ever popular Christmas Tournament at the John Hanson School on Friday, December 19. Based upon the handicap system, the winners this season were two 11-year olds, Mike Cartridge and Evan Gwynn-Davis who narrowly defeated the more experienced Stephen Biles and Kenneth Gates 21-20 in the final set.

Biles and Gates were having to concede 15 points at the start of each set, but showed great determination and skill in taking the match to the last possible point.