Britain’s longest winning streak for women is over at 16-0, when Naomi Broady failed to reach the quarter-finals of the $50,000 Challenger in Quanzhou City. After a hard fought 36 63 64 win over the 4th seed Julia Cohen (USA) in round one, Naomi paid the price of losing her serve 3 times in the 1st set, all in games where she held game point and lost the set 7-5 to Aleksandra Krunic (SER), who then got hot and won the 2nd set 6-0. “Conditions did not suit Naomi’s game. It was cold and very slow so Naomi was unable to use her pace to dominate a very accomplished mover like Aleksandra. Even so Naomi would have been in good shape had she converted one of the three game points on her serve especially the forehand at 5-5 when Krunic was beginning to wobble. That changes a match. If a player escapes 3 times in a set it takes the pressure off and from then on she rolled. Again failure to convert to go 1-2 in the second set allowed her to settle and play some excellent tennis” said Dave Sammel who has been with Naomi throughout the winning streak. Naomi will hope to begin a new streak when she begins play in the $25,000 in Pinggou next week, before returning to the UK.

David Sammel, Director of Tennis for MCTA and long time tour coach is proud to be part of another piece of British tennis history. Although he is no longer the coach of Naomi Broady, he selected her at 13 to be part of the LTA National Academy in Leeds and coached her for 3 years until he left the LTA to form the MCTA Touring Academy, where he offered Naomi a sponsored place. Her father Simon felt it was too early for her to endure extensive travel and declined but the two men have kept contact and when Naomi needed support for this recent trip to Mexico and Cuba, the MCTA was more than happy to do the job. The chemistry worked and the results were more than anyone could expect with Naomi winning 3 titles and posting a 15 match winning streak, a British women’s record. David hopes she does not stop there and goes on to set a higher target for other British players to chase. David (often with Jez Green as the trainer) is Britain’s most prolific active coach over the past 20 years guiding many players’ to career high rankings and into the top 200 and beyond. Here are some of the milestones.

MCTA/TeamBath is a combination of a traditional Academy with the added value of the MCTA Touring Team providing flexibility with its experienced team of coaches and physical trainers who travel with players to tournaments around the world. Players can join the Touring Team for training or travel either as full time members or for short bursts of work on a consultancy basis. Diana Marcinkevica from Latvia joined us for training in Bath for a week in November and Naomi Broady who was coached by David Sammel for 3 years (13-16) at the LTA Leeds Academy teamed up with the MCTA for a 3 week trip to Mexico and Cuba alongside Natasha Khan who has recently joined MCTA full time.

MCTA Player Anna Fitzpatrick had a successful two weeks competing in 10k tournaments in UK, Felixstowe and Frinton. Anna made the singles final of Frinton this week beating No.5 seed Jocelyn Rae 64, 64  in her way, but lost to Heather Watson of Great Britain 46 64 62 in the final. Anna was a finalist in the doubles event too.  She teamed up with Australian Emelyn Starr. They lost in the final to Rae and Windley of Great Britain 63, 75.