Rachael Iles and Anna Piercey combined to win not one, but two bronze medals at the Junior and Under-21 National Championships at the weekend.  The trip to Kettering proved to be more than worthwhile as the girls reached the semi-finals of the Under-21 Women's Doubles on Saturday and then, the following day, the same stage in the Junior (under-19) Girls' Doubles.

On Saturday they defeated Saskia key and Alyssa Nguyen 3-0 in the quarter-final but then found Anna Green and Mari Baldwin too strong in the following round. Fast forward a day and it was a similar story. After defeating Evie Knaapen and Catherine Lv 3-1 in the quarters they were beaten by the eventual champions, Ella Pashley and Sophie Earley, in the semi-final.

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The event was, of course, not only doubles and Rachael and Anna both qualified for the singles event on each day. Unfortunately, Anna did not quite make it through the preliminary round group stage either time even though she managed to win one of her three matches in both competitions.

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Rachael, on the other hand, was more successful. She won twice in both competitions at the group stage which qualified her for the knock-out phases. She then won her first round matches against Mabel Shute and Soraya Rahmani-Walentynska but, alas, fell at the quarter-final stage both days. On Saturday Sophie Earley was her conqueror 3-1 and then, on Sunday, Alyssa Nguyen got the better of her over five games 3-2.