BURDEROP husband and wife team Lewis and Catherine Fletcher are guaranteed the chance to play for a mixed doubles medal at the 22nd Summer Deaflympics in Sofia, Bulgaria, after winning their quarter-final in straight sets today.
Last year’s European mixed doubles bronze medallists powered to a straight sets win over China’s Jiali Shen and Xue-Liang Tang to move into Thursday’s semi-finals, with Catherine now guaranteed to play for a medal in the women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
The fourth seeds, the three-time national mixed doubles champions, beat Shen and Tang 6-2, 6-0 to set up a semi-final against German top seeds and reigning European champions Heike Albrecht and Urs Breitenberger.
“After some mixed results for me earlier this week, it’s nice to get back to winning ways again,” said Lewis Fletcher who, along with his wife is a Ramsbury Tennis Club coach.
“After today’s win we are both looking forward to the semi tomorrow against the same German pairing we got so close to beating over three sets in the semi-finals of last year’s European Championships. They eventually went on to win gold and we won the bronze medal.”
Catherine returned from the Taipei Deaflympics in 2009 having won gold in the mixed doubles.
She will also bid to reach the women’s singles final on Thursday in Sofia when she plays world number one Chiu-Mei Ho in her semi-final, while Friday’s penultimate day of play in Bulgaria will see her partner fellow Brit Bethany Brookes in the women's doubles bronze medal match.
Having beaten the Italian fourth seeds and Taipei 2009 Deaflympic bronze medallists in their quarter-final on Tuesday, Fletcher and Brookes found the going tough against second seeds Chiu-Mei Ho and Hsiu-Hsiang Ho in their women’s doubles semi-final, with the Chinese Taipei sisters and 2009 Deaflympic silver medallists advancing to another final 6-1, 6-2.
Fletcher and Brookes, the reigning women’s doubles national champions, will now play Taipei 2009 gold medallists and top seeds Albrecht and Verena Fleckenstein for the bronze medal.
UPDATES ON THE FLETCHERS' PROGRESS CONTINUE AT GAZETTEANDHERALD.CO.UK/SPORT THIS WEEK
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