GB ladies’ seniors manager Sally Fisher has vowed her side are entering the inaugural Plaza Padel Nations Cup to win it.
Four GB ladies’ sides spanning the over-40s to over-55s age groups will compete against Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, with the event also featuring a special ‘All Stars’ ensemble, at Plaza Padel Amsterdam from 10-12 February.
Speaking exclusively to The Padel Paper, Fisher – who devised the event with Netherlands captain Mirjam Van Roer – revealed the 10 players who will carry Home Nations hopes in the Dutch capital.
The GB side was selected from a 30-strong squad after two winter training camps in Spain and England and further selection events in the north and south of England which initially whittled down a pool of 70 players aged between 39 and 70.
The GB ladies’ seniors manager said: “We are in it to win it, but we are also realistic. Sweden and Netherlands are very strong but then so are we. The team has really strengthened since last March and trained very diligently for this.”
The selection committee of Head Coach and Chair, Nigel Garton, along with captain Libby Fletcher, chose the following 10 players: Helen Crook, Victoria Davies, Elspeth Edwards, Libby Fletcher, Dawn Foxhall, Anthea Hunt, Sarah Lochrie, Abigail Tordoff, Jo Ward and Fisher herself.
Crook, Davies, Ward and Foxhall will be making their GB debuts, while Edwards and Lochrie will make their first seniors appearances for their country.
Fisher explains: “Dawn for example has a World Padel Tour ranking and progressed through the qualifiers at the Austrian World Padel Tour. She also won her first-round match there, so she has some World Padel Tour points.”
Selections were made after assessment of players’ performances and results on the LTA Padel Tour, FIP and WPT Open and seniors rankings, as well as national training camps, regional or national selections events and at least six official tournament results from the previous 12 months.
Fisher explains: “All four key ‘performance’ factors in terms of mental, physical, tactical and technical aspects were also taken into account. We are really happy with the selection and very much believe that we have assembled the strongest 10 players available.
“There is a good element of experience with three of us [Fletcher, Hunt and herself] having played in the Las Vegas World Championship team, while Abi and Libby played with the GB open-age team at the recent World Championship qualifiers in Derby.”
GB skipper Libby Fletcher has no doubt that a strong showing in the home of the tulip could make 2023 a good year for the roses.
She said: “The Nations Cup is a fantastic opportunity for our GB senior players to gain competitive experience at international level.
“We go into the event with a strong team who have continued to work hard to improve their game in the recent months. We are excited to match up with experienced European players.
“The event will provide a platform from which we will set the tone of our senior training goals for the rest of the year in preparation for our next official FIP event.”
Fisher’s own determination to put her best foot forward in Amsterdam is underlined by attending a training camp in Spain last week with the women’s game’s longest ever reigning world No.1 Carolina Navarro.
The Nations Cup will include some interesting and innovative features courtesy of its sponsors Plaza Padel Amsterdam.
The tournament is aimed at the four categories between over-40s and over-55s – but with four wild cards allowed. Players are allowed to play up to one category age group above their own, provided one of the pair is of that category, and any player can play down.
In each match there will feature eight players from the five core nations of Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and GB.
The format will effectively be round-robin with every country playing each other. In every match there will be two people sitting it out, so organisers created an All Stars team featuring a mix of the people from each country not on court – although they will not score. “We hope it will really foster the friendship aspect of the tournament,” said Fisher.
The format will be best of three sets, golden points, and champions tie-break to 10 for the third set. In the event of a two-all draw between the four age categories, it would go down to the difference between the number of games won and lost. If that is still a draw there will be a championship tie-break from an age group drawn out of a hat.
“The aim is to create as much great play as possible and we really hope this format will allow us to do just that,” says Fisher.
Co-organiser Mirjam Van Roer admitted her pride at creating the event: “The sport is growing like mad but national team tournaments are few and far between and the Plaza Padel Nations Cup is a big step towards addressing that.”
Without a strong spirit of cooperation and willingness from sponsors to back the event, this ground-breaking tournament may well never have come to pass.
Fisher said: “Firstly I’d like to thank Mirjam Van Roer, the Netherlands captain who has helped me organise the tournament and hopefully we have made a good job of it.
“Plaza Padel have been fantastic in providing the venue and being the main sponsor, while Royal Padel are providing some of the prizes and the Indian Maharadja, which is a new padel brand from the Netherlands, are sponsoring the tournament t shirts. Thank you also to Padel Shack and Bob Smith for their continued support.”
