KIRA Reuter lived up to her billing as No 1 seed at the Aegon British Junior National Tennis Championships at the weekend by winning both the singles and the doubles competitions for girls aged 12 and under.

Reuter, Hemingford Grey’s 12-year-old tennis star, breezed through both of the competitions to win the national titles on clay at Bournemouth’s West Hants club where the best of the United Kingdom’s players were battling it out for honours.

In the final of the singles competition, against Gemma Heath from Surrey, Reuter won 6-4 6-2 – then she linked up with doubles partner Esther Adeshina, from Basingstoke, and the pair beat Imogen Sinclair and Kirsten Campbell-Ferguson in the final 6-1 7-5. “It feels absolutely fantastic,” said Reuter, who has moved from St Ivo to take up a tennis scholarship at Culford School in Bury St Edmunds this week. “I was very excited about the singles final but I knew it was going to be tough especially as Gemma beat me in Sheffield at the Tennis Europe event last month. I watched her semi-final with my coach Chris Johnson so I knew what I had to do to beat her.”

Her father, Vernon Reuter, told The Hunts Post: “The whole family are immensely proud of Kira, she works exceptionally hard in training and plays with a positive attitude in all her matches.

“She really deserves the success that she’s had this week.”