Cippenham's women are flying high after making perfect start in Wolverhampton

The Cippenham Women’s First team won all five of their matches in Wolverhampton this weekend to lead the Women’s British League Division 3 at the half-way stage.

The team were in invincible form over the weekend and will go into the second and final weekend of the league season with a two-point advantage over closest rivals Worthing, and are four points clear of Colebridge 2nds in third place.

The team currently comprises two 16-year-olds and a 14-year-old, however, they made light of that inexperience on Saturday and Sunday and have given themselves the best possible opportunity to gain promotion having narrowly missed out on it last season.

Rachael Iles, Cippenham’s number one ranked player, demonstrated why she’s ranked as the 22nd best player in the county, winning all her matches, while Mia Lakhani, two years younger – and four places lower in the national rankings – won nine of her 10 encounters. They were ably supported by Anna Piercey who weighed in with six wins.

The team’s successful run began on Saturday morning with a 5-1 success over Greenhouse, a powerhouse club from London. Rachael and Mia won both of their matches while Anna delivered an 11-0 demolition over Sylwia Pajak.

The Graham Spicer team from New Malden then felt the full force of Cippenham’s power hitting as they succumbed to a 6-0 defeat while Saturday’s play concluded with a convincing 5-1 win over Loop Dublin. The Irish team were no match for Rachale and Mia although Yixue Bai did manage to get the better of Anna.

The Cippenham team picked up on Sunday where they left off on Saturday evening, with Rachael delivering two more storming displays to sweep aside Sally Hughes and Lok Sze Sun, both 3-0. She conceded only 37 points in the process and her victories were supplemented by wins for Mia and Anna over Holly Holder.

The final match of the weekend produced another 5-1 success for Cippenham over Colebridge 2nds with Rachael and Mia again remaining unbeaten. Over the weekend’s five matches, Rachael received three player-of-the-match awards while the other two were given to Mia.

Meanwhile, in another part of the same hall, Cippenham’s second team made a more sedate start to their Division 4 campaign. The team – led by top seed Mary Heffernan - occupy a mid-table position heading into their final weekend.

Mary proved to be Cippenham’s standout player, winning seven of her 10 matches, while Sue Hayes won five. Julie Dean picked up four wins from eight and Denise Weller, troubled by injury managed two. Over the weekend, the team managed two wins, two defeats and a draw.

They opened with a close encounter against Jersey, where Mary and Denise claimed victories. Julie replaced Denise for the second match but couldn’t prevent Cippenham from going down to a 4-2 defeat to Halton 3rds. Saturday finished on a low note with a 4-2 defeat to Youngs. Cippenham’s wins came from Mary and Sue.

Sunday was much improved with Cippenham becoming the first – and subsequently only – team to take points off divisional leaders Ackworth. This was a great team display with all three of the team winning and losing.

Buoyed by that success, they backed it up with a confident 6-0 win over Sutton.