Great Britain's men's and women's deaf tennis teams resume their campaigns today in the Dresse and Maere Cup, the world team championships of deaf tennis, in Izmir, Turkey with one win apiece in their round robin group ties to date.
Great Britain's men face host nation Turkey in the fourth of their five round-robin group contests in the Dresse Cup competition, having won their opening tie against Chinese Taipei on Saturday by a convincing 3-0 scoreline after Ben Kelly, one of three Great Britain debutants, made a fine start to his first Dresse and Maere Cup with a 6-0, 6-3 victory.
Two-time National champion Daniel Tunstall from Devizes TC put the tie beyond the Chinese Taipei team as he began his fifth successive Dresse and Maere Cup by easing through his match 6-0, 6-0 in less than an hour. Team debutants Nicholas Ansell and Jack Clifton rounded off the win in an epic doubles encounter, coming from 3-0 down to win the next 11 games and withstanding a fight back from the Chinese Taipei Doubles pairing to prevail 6-0, 7-5.
A tough second group tie against former champions Germany ended in a 3-0 loss for Great Britain, while Monday's contest against Japan started promisingly as 17-year-old Kelly came from a set down to lead a third and deciding set 3-0. However, he was unable to hold on against an opponent that gave him little pace to hit off and Japan took the lead.
In extreme temperatures of 45 degrees Tunstall fought against illness and the heat to get edged out by just one single service break in the opening set of his singles rubber and a typically brave performance ultimately ended in a 4-6, 2-6 loss. Ansell and Clifton took to the court for the doubles and some fine tennis from the relatively inexperienced duo ended with Japan winning 6-2, 6-1 to complete their win.
With ties against Turkey and Greece now remaining for the Great Britain players and coach Chris Cash in their group of six nations, they will hope they can end the group stage of the competition on a high before play-offs to decide their final placing.
As with the men, Great Britain's women got their Maere Cup campaign off to a fine start as two-time National Champion Bethany Brookes opened her international career with a 6-0, 6-0 victory against Turkey. Beth Simmons, the only member of this year's team to have played in Great Britain's Maere Cup victory in 2003 in Austria, then put the tie beyond Turkey as he eased to a 6-1 6-1 victory.
With Britain's opening group win secured, Brookes and 15-year-old fellow team debutante Sophie Paul went into the doubles rubber facing not just their opponents, but some strong crowd support for the Turkish duo, and in a match that shifted in momentum several times it was the Turkish paring that eventually came out on top 7-6, 7-5.
Great Britain's women faced a German side boasting some experienced international performers in their second group tie and Brookes was unlucky to lose the first set of her rubber by a single break before eventually succummbing 6-4, 6-2 and Simmons was unable to rescue the tie and Germany went on to secure a 3-0 win.
Britain now have ties against Greece and Japan in their group of five nations in the women's Maere Cup event and, again, following the completion of the group stage of the competition final placings will be decided in series of play-offs.