England took a clean sweep of the team events at the Senior Home Nations held at the National Sports Centre, on the Isle of Man last weekend. The men’s team of Darius Knight and Chris Doran didn’t drop a game in taking the title and there was a good win for Chris against Scottish number one Craig Howieson, who is ranked 22 places above him in the world. The women’s team of Emma Vickers and senior debutant Lauren Spink were also impressive in winning all their matches, with Emma taking a crucial victory over Alice Loveridge to seal a 3-1 victory over Guernsey.

All our players had little trouble in the group stages, with Lauren doing particularly well from an unseeded position to top her group with wins over Amanda Mogey (IRL), and Regina Grech (Wal).  She then had a comfortable win over Angharad Phillips (Wal) to meet Emma in the semi-final who had beaten Gillian Edwards (Sco). Their semi-final was an open attacking game worthy of the final, Emma won in five sets. Unfortunately Emma failed to find her true form in the final and lost in four sets to Alice Loveridge of Guernsey.

In the men’s event Darius and Chris managed to win their groups, although Chris was extended to five sets by Callum Main of Scotland. Darius then had wins over Main and a four set victory over the much improved Paul McCreery (IRL) to reach the final. Chris beat Guernseys Gary Dodds in the quarter-final to set up an encounter with Howieson in the semis. Having beaten him comfortably in the team event this was a much closer match with Chris just scraping through in five close sets.

Darius always had the upper hand in the final and his lightning footwork and clever service variation was just too much for Chris with him becoming the 2010 British Champion with a 3-1 victory.

By Sally Shutt