British titles help Teresa Catlin plan pursuit of glory at ITF World Seniors' Event
Teresa Catlin started the build-up to the defence of her two world tennis titles in May by successfully defending her two British ones.
The current world 50+ singles and doubles champion – with 50+ captain Siobhan Nicholson – heads for Florida in late April for the ITF World Seniors Event.
Catlin will try to help Great Britain improve on last year’s sixth place in the women’s over-50 team competition in Boca Raton, before the individual singles and doubles events in West Palm Beach.
She will go there as British indoor singles and doubles over-50 champion for the second year running after last week’s championship at Tipton.
With Nicholson unavailable and last year’s title-winning team-mate Anne Meredith not playing competitively, Catlin teamed up at the last minute with Dutch player Nelleke van Velthoven Weijermans to win the doubles title.
They beat the other two players who will again make up the British team this year, Katie Shaw and Jane Hunter, 6-1, 6-2.
Less than 24 hours later, the top seed was back on court for the final of her first singles competition since winning the world crown in August.
Catlin made short work of unseeded Brigid Amos, who had put out the second and fourth seeds on the way to the final, winning 6-0, 6-1.
As teams have already been selected for this year’s world championships, Catlin’s victory will go towards qualification for the 2021 competition.
“I was quite happy with my performances after a few months out of competition, and relieved to know the injury sustained in Lisbon didn’t cause any lasting problems,” she said.
Dutchman Pieter van Houten, who plays at the David Lloyd club in Cambridge, won the over-45 men’s doubles with Sebastian Jackson. The top seeds beat second seeds Nick Boys and David Mills 6-3, 6-2
Judy Horn, a coach at Hills Road tennis centre who plays for Norfolk and is the sister of long-serving Cambs coach Sue Rich, won the over-60 singles title in a three-set battle against third seed Alice Shimmin.
With a total of nine Cambridgeshire players in action at the championships, which has sections for players aged 35+ to 85+, doubles duo Scott Martin and Alan Jordan were runners-up in the men’s 55 doubles, losing 6-2, 6-3 to Marc Hughes and Adrian Hyde.
