KIRA Reuters, St Ives’ rising tennis star, teamed up with Eliz Maloney from Bournemouth at the recent British Junior National Championships and together they won the girls’ 12-and-under title.

The pair, who were seeded No2, defeated Emily Appleton and Jodie Lawrence-Taylor in the final of the competition which took place at West Hants Club in Bournemouth after starting off strongly and capturing the tight opening set 7-5. However, the top seeds fought back to take the second set 6-2.

The title was decided in a thrilling third set match tie-break which was Reuter and Maloney won 12-10 after saving a match point.

Reuter, 11, said: “We feel amazing and we are really pleased, we really wanted the win badly.

“We knew it would be quite close – once we won the first set we dropped our focus and made a few more errors.

“The match tie-break was really tight and we just got the edge.”

Maloney added: “We had to work hard to hold our nerve.”

In the same age-group, Reuter reached the quarter finals despite being a year younger than most of her competitors.