The new season of the Women's British Clubs League got underway at the weekend at Wolverhampton with the Cippenham team placed in Division 1, one step below the pinnacle of the Premier Division.

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The team of Rachael Iles, Mia Lakhani and Anna Piercey were playing together for the fifth consecutive season under the Cippenham banner, having grown up together since they were all juniors. Mia is still a junior while Rachael is in her first season as a senior and Anna is a further year ahead. The team bonding was obvious as Cippenham stormed to a great 6-0 opening victory over Brighton who turned out to be the division's weakest team at the end of the weekend.

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The second match was much more of a test with only Rachael managing to contribute her two singles sets in a 2-4 defeat to Draycott. The score stood 2-2 after Rachael had defeated both Millie Noble and Catherine Lv but Mia was not quite able to grab a point for her team when she lost the final set at 11-5 in the fifth game after sharing the first four games that had all concluded with the minimum two-point margin.

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Saturday's matches were brought to a close with a well-earned 3-3 draw with Ellenborough. Rachael again won both her matches, against Sara Williams and Larisa Titievskaja while Mia earned Cippenham a point with her 13-11 fifth-game win over Diana Rusinova.

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Sunday morning brought a heavy 0-6 defeat to top-of-the-table Flick TTC who lost only three sets all weekend. The weekend then finished with another 3-3 draw with Joola Plymouth, a result that saw Cippenham finish fourth out of six in the division at the half-way stage. All three Cippenham girls contributed to the result as Rachael beat Gemma Kerr while Mia and Anna both beat Yuki Gresswell. However, no-one was able to get to grips with Marketa Myskova and Mia was unlucky to lose the final set of the match 11-9 in the decider to Kerr.