Issey Norman-Ross. (Picture by Daniel Guerin, 0405047)
ISSEY NORMAN-ROSS has won her first senior title at the age of 14.
The Ladies’ College schoolgirl met fellow junior Natalie Dodd, 16, in the final of the Ogier Women’s Island Squash Championship.
And in a thriller at King’s on Wednesday night, Norman-Ross took the honours 3-1.
The pair are in the top 16 in the country and this weekend they are competing in the under-17 girls’ British Open.
‘They are probably pound for pound the best female players on the island,’ said Peter Bridgeman, the director of island squash.
‘It’s a testament to junior squash on the whole. Issey and Nat are different styles of players, a bit like Lisa Opie and Martine Le Moignan.
‘They were both totally different, but both were effective.’
Dodd started the final the stronger as she took an early 3-0 lead in the first game.
She went on to 5-3 but crucially could not close the game out and the grit of Norman-Ross was enough to unsettle her.
The game levelled at five-all before Norman-Ross took it 9-5.
Dodd bounced back in the second to take a 7-0 lead. After a little lapse in concentration, she won it 9-4.
In a third game that witnessed 26 hand-outs, neither player was dominant in the early exchanges as the rallies were long and hard fought for.
The squash was now of the highest quality as Dodd had the advantage at 7-6.
Despite having four hand-outs, Dodd again could not finish the game as her opponent came through to win it 9-7.
Dodd had lost the crucial third game and in the fourth showed few signs of taking the match to a fifth and deciding game.
In the initial stages of the fourth she had a few hand-outs but Norman-Ross had the bit between her teeth and there was no stopping her as she raced to 9-0 to win the match and the title.
It looks set to be the first of many for Norman-Ross.
‘It should be, as long as she continues to improve the way she is,’ said Bridgeman.
In the quarter-finals of the men’s event, there were wins for Martin Watts, Ross Kneller, Henry Birch and Lawrence Graham.
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