Six debutants in England squad

Six England players will be making their debuts at the World Junior Individual Championships at Eindhoven in the Netherlands next month.

Suffolk teenager Lucy Turmel, who won the English Under-17 Championship in March, is one of three English first-timers in the women’s event, along with Surrey’s Kace Bartley and Leicestershire’s Mari Taylor, both of whom are 17.

They will line up alongside Kent duo Georgina Kennedy and Amelia Henley, and Northumbria’s Lucy Beecroft, who missed last year’s tournament because of injury.

“We are taking two extra players to play in the individual event in Mari and Lucy Turmel,” explained ESR Girls’ High Performance Coach Tania Bailey.

“They will still be eligible for the Worlds next year and Lucy makes the next team event, so we are delighted that she is part of the squad this time around.”

There will also be three English debutants in the junior men’s event in Kent’s Bradley Masters, Surrey’s Charlie Lee and Hampshire’s Kyle Finch. Masters is 18, Lee is 17 and Finch is 16.

They will be supplemented by Merseyside’s Patrick Rooney and Yorkshire’s James Peach, both of whom are 18.

With Rooney the highest ranked of the quintet in the PSA list at 242nd, ESR Boys’ High Performance Coach Lee Drew said it would be “a challenge” to win a medal in Eindhoven.

However, he added: “I would never rule out what our players could achieve in the event.”

Bailey echoed those views for the junior women’s championship, saying: “It is going to be very difficult to get a medal with the massive strength that all the Egyptian players have.

“I still believe on their day our players could cause an upset, though, and they certainly will put up a very strong fight to get a medal.

“I do feel we deserve some 5/8 seedings and some 9/16, so we are hoping to have as many players in the last 16 and then the quarters.”

Kennedy, the highest-ranked of the English girls in the WSA list at 84th, reached the quarter-finals last year as a 9/16 seed.