MELBOURN Squash Club member Kate Bradshaw underlined her status as the leading female player in Cambridgeshire by retaining her title at the Harrow Sports sponsored County Closed Championships last week.

She conceded just a single game in the tournament’s early rounds, in a 3-1 quarter-final win over Nadine El-Refee (Hunts County). A hard-fought, straight-games win in the semi-final over fellow seed Julia Dolman (Saffron Walden) set up a final against Mhairi Dougal (Cambridge).

In Saturday’s title match, Bradshaw utilised a combination of lob serves that pushed Dougal deep into the back corners followed by volleyed drop shots hit with cut-spin into the opposite front corner, to race into a two-game lead. Her accuracy on the drop shot was impressive, not passing up any opportunities to kill the ball in the opening two games, a level she couldn’t quite maintain in the third as a couple of attempted backhand winners found the tin. This was to be the only minor blemish on a performance, the strength of which was emphasised when she shrugged off a controversial stroke-call going against her when match ball up, to edge the third game on a tie-break and take the title with a 11-9 11-6 12-10 scoreline.

Bradshaw commented afterwards: “I was delighted to win again this year. My game plan worked well, and I was very happy to keep it to a 3-0 scoreline.”