Freya Christie and Neil Pauffley captured the Aegon British Tour end of season Masters titles at Nottingham Tennis Centre on Sunday.
Christie who lives and trains in Nottingham achieved the remarkable feat of capturing back to back Masters titles, having first won the title shortly after her 16th birthday in December 2013.
A youthful women’s line up saw two 16 year olds, a 17 year old [Christie], and 19 year old make the last four, with Christie, seeded 2nd,
finding herself the elder of the player’s in Sunday’s final against top seed and world number 704, Mariam Bolkvadze.
The opening set saw a few exchanges of service breaks, before the defending champion confidently served out to take the set 6-4.
However, after a very long game on the Christie serve at 1-0, the determined Bolkvadze won six games in a row, to level the match at one set all. Whilst the key game in the previous set had been the second game, the decisive game in the third proved to be the opening game.
This time it was the Nottingham teenager, who came out on top, and then won five of the next six games for a 64 16 61 victory.
After the match Christie commented ‘It’s great to win the title for the second time, and the prize money will really help fund some travel to pro events abroard in the early part of 2015’
Meanwhile the men’s singles final also produced some high quality tennis between 4th seed Josh Goodall, who won the title in 2012, and
3rd seed Neil Pauffley, who was making his debut at the Masters, (having not been able to compete in the 2013 event, due to competing in Slovakia, having finished top of the Aegon British Tour 2013 leader board).
In an opening set dominated by serve, Pauffley [world ranked 635] decisively broke at 5-4, and despite racing to a 4-1 lead in the 2nd set,
Goodall wasn’t going to lie down without a fight. A marathon game at 4-2, which saw the 4th seed hold three break points, threatened to take the initiative from Pauffley, however, Pauffley stayed strong to hold and despite saving another breakpoint when serving for the match took the 2014 title with a 64 63 victory.
After the match, like Christie, Pauffley commented ‘This victory really helps me for the start of next year. I’ve been out injured for a couple of months, so the matches, together with the prize money, will certainly help with traveling to pro events abroard in the early part of 2015’
Whilst the women’s champion, Christie will now spend the next few weeks training, the men’s champion travels out to Egypt on Monday to compete in his final pro event of 2014.
The 2015 Aegon British Tour starts at Sheffield over the new year, with full information on www.lta.org.uk/aegonbritishtour.