TIA Norton continues her trailblazing 2021 this week by leading Team GB in the World Championships.
The Whitnash teenager created history earlier this year by becoming the first British women to play on the professional padel tour – and won her first two matches.
The 17-year-old former Myton School student teamed up with Swedish partner Amanda Girdo to secure two three-set wins in the Malaga Open in Spain.
And this week Tia is captaining GB’s women’s team in the World Championships in Doha.
Teams will compete in round robin groups, with the top teams in each progressing to the knockout round.
GB women, seeded 15th, were edged out 2-1 by Uruguay and Mexico in their opening matches and were due to face eight-times world champions Argentina yesterday.
Padel – a cross between tennis and squash – is played on an enclosed court, smaller than a tennis court, but has the same scoring system as tennis, over the best of three sets and is always played in doubles.
The ball can bounce of any wall but can only hit the turf once before being returned. Points can be scored when the ball does bounce twice in the competitors’ field.
Tia, the British No.1, first started playing padel in 2015 at the age of 12, having grown up as a keen tennis player.
She has represented GB seniors six times over the last five years, including playing the European Padel Championships in Marbella in June.
It was there where she met doubles partner Girdo, with whom she has formed a strong partnership. After only a couple of weeks of training together, having joined up for practice in Sweden, they travelled to Malaga for their first World Padel Tour event together.
Tia described the experience in playing on the WPT as the highlight of her career so far.
