SILCHESTER tennis ace Hannah Smith has enjoyed a successful end of the year.

The 12-year-old captained her school team to victory in the Division 1 South West Regional AEGON School Year 8 Team Tennis finals held in Exeter.

Smith led the team by winning all her matches to top the league defeating teams from Portsmouth Grammar School, Gloucester High School for Girls and Millfield, to qualify for the National School finals held in Bolton later in December.

Immediately after this event Smith moved onto the Virgin Active Winter Regional U16 tour held in Croydon.

Competing against girls up to four years her elder, Smith beat Ella Collins 6-2 6-2 and Yasmin Knowles 6-2 6-1 to set-up up a semi-final against Olivia Stapley the number three seed which saw Smith reach the final with a 6-0 6-3 victory where she then took on Katy Graydon to win the event 6-3 6-2.

At the end of November Smith was selected to represent Hampshire County Ladies in the AEGON Winter County Cup held in Boston.

In a tightly fought event which went down to the very last match Hampshire Ladies finished third with Smith winning all her singles and doubles matches against ladies from Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Dorset.

The beginning of December saw Smith travelled up to Shrewsbury for the Under-14 regional tour event.

Again without dropping a set Smith moved through rounds one and two winning 6-3 6-1 and 6-3 7-5 and then defeated Adeola Greatorex 6-0 6-4 in the semi-final and Asena Pavlova 6-4 6-4 in the final.

At the National School Team Final in Bolton, Smith captained her School Talbot Heath to the National Championships competing against three other school regional final winners, Culford School, Manchester High School and Trent College.

On day one Talbot Heath defeated Manchester High School 4-2 and Trent College 6-0.

This led to a final showdown between Talbot Heath and Culford School. Talbot Heath took the first two doubles matches with Smith and doubles partner Gonzales-Edwards defeating Culford’s first pairing of Higazy and Matthews.

Team mate Hazel Vernon won her fourth string singles match to give Talbot Heath a 3-0 lead.

Culford won the next singles match to close the gap to 3-1, before Gonzales-Edwards beat Higazy to secure the title for Talbot Heath and Smith topped off a great weekend beating Culford’s number one player Matthews sealing a 5-1 victory and the National Schools Year 8 Championships.

Fellow school/team mate and former Basingstoke resident Esther Adeshina also lead the Year 10 Talbot Heath team to the Year 10 National Championships held on the same weekend in Bolton.