Ladies Championships 2025

Ladies Championships 2025

Ian Mitchell reports:

10/03/25: Sunday 9th March saw 21 pairs gathered in the sunshine at Eton to take part in the qualifying rounds of the Ladies Championships in association with Advanta Wealth.

Many thanks to Eton College for hosting the event after a year’s break due to refurbishment, and especially for allowing us to make use of the new Constantinidi centre, a day after its official opening.

In addition to nine adult pairs, there was the usual throng of Shrewsbury School girls, 2½ pairs from Ipswich school, and pleasingly a pair each from Highgate and Berkhamsted. The whole field was divided into four pools in order to qualify eight pairs into the quarter finals, and the rest into Plate and Festival events.

There were no surprises with the top five seeds progressing with few problems, and as usual the interest was in the jostling for the other three slots in the quarter finals.

Shrewsbury girls Emily Clark & Sienna Earles put up a good fight against fourth seeds Emma Graham & Liz Ware, before playing out a nailbiter with Berkhamstedians Rosie Whitby & Indie Conde, eventually edging it 15-13 to take that quarter-final spot. Scratch pair Louise Rymall and Olivia Prankerd Smith similarly secured their place with a 15-12 victory over Alice Beardsmore & Jess Fraser-Andrews (Shrewsbury). More interesting was the fight in group B, where at one point it seemed that any one of four pairs could have taken the second-place spot behind Ashley & Emily. Eventually Tiffany Leung & Millie Parry (Shrewsbury) came through thanks to a 15-9 win over Lucy Craughwell-Franks & Sophie Clifford-King.

Sadly, in the best-of-five quarter-finals, those three qualifiers could only manage four points between them against the top three seeds. Safely through were the holders, Karen & Charlotta, and perennial challengers Ashley & Emily and Dom & Elana. In the fourth quarter-final, Harry Asquith & Rachel Wood started well against Emma & Liz, taking a 5-2 lead in the first set. But the younger Old Salopian pair soon began to take control of the game and eventually won quite comfortably in three sets.

Quarter-Finals

Karen Hird & Charlotta Cooley (1) beat Olivia Prankerd Smith & Louise Rymall 3-0 (12-0; 12-1; 12-0)

Ashley Lumbard & Emily Scoones (2) beat Emily Clark & Sienna Earles 3-0 (12-1; 12-1; 12-1)

Dominique Redmond & Elana Osen (3) beat Tiffany Leung & Millie Parry 3-0 (12-0; 12-0; 12-0)

Emma Graham & Liz Ware (4) beat Harry Asquith & Rachel Wood 3-0 (12-7; 12-4; 12-2)

The semi-finals will be played alongside the Kinnaird Cup semi-finals at Eton on 30th March.

Plates & Festival

3rd & 4th place pairs in each qualifying group dropped into the Plate event, while the remaining pairs contested the Festival. The Plate consisted of three rounds of knockout, with the first-round losers dropping into the ‘B’ plate.

Ipswich youngsters Betsy Laws and Millie Hodgkinson cruised through their first two knockout matches, as did Alice & Jess. The final was a closer affair, but Betsy & Millie had the edge to take the title with a 15-9 win. With youth on their side, there is a promising future ahead for the Ipswichians.

Lucy & Sophie had narrowly lost their first-round plate match, but won their second to reach the plate B final. There they met Emily Hughes of Ipswich & organiser Mandie Barnes, in a partnership put together after a lunchtime reshuffle due to injury and an unexpected concert invite. After an evenly matched start to the final, Mandie & Emily pulled away to win 15-8.

The reshuffle had meant that there were only four pairs left to contest the Festival, which took the form of an all-play-all round robin. The Highgate pair of Annabel Holmes and Stella Valensise had had a disappointing run in the group stages to find themselves in the Festival, but showed no mercy against the other three pairs of Shrewsbury girls.

Plate A

Quarter-Finals

Betsy Laws & Millie Hodgkinson beat Mandie Barnes & Emily Hughes 15-3

Rosie Whitby & Indie Conde beat Rebecca Kelly & Anastasia Moore 15-5

Alice Bearsdmore & Jess Fraser-Andrews beat Charlotte Harker & Charlotte Taylor 15-1

Rachel McCormack & Emilia Collinson beat Lucy C-F & Sophie C-K 15-11

Semi-Finals

Betsy & Millie beat Rosie & Indie 15-5

Alice & Jess beat Rachel & Emilia 15-2

Final

Betsy & Millie beat Alice & Jess 15-9

Plate B