Hi everyone,
Hope you're all doing well. I just had a look at the sign-up list for the
B1s: we have 12 players down so far (6 men and 6 women), with only 3 days
to go; but that's down on last year, and quite a few of the usual suspects,
as it were, aren't on the list as yet.
So, for anyone sitting on the fence and not quite sure about the venue -
and, also, for anyone who's already signed up but who wasn't at the
Loughborough regional tournament and so hasn't seen the place - I thought
I'd give a few highlights.
Loughborough is quite easy to get to, BTW: I believe there are direct
trains from London St Pancras, and it's a short hop from Leicester. The
venue is an easy taxi journey from the station (there's a taxi rank, if my
memory serves).
There are 8 indoor courts, divided into two halls of 4 courts each, one on
each side of the building. My understanding is that one whole side is
going to be used for the B1 event, so we'll have 3 or 4 courts, with no
noise from B2-B5 matches. The acoustics were already good at the regional
- better than the NTC last year - and, with the hall being used only for
B1, I'm expecting the acoustics to be even better this time. A similar
experiment worked really well in Cambridge this year, despite the hall
normally having a major issue with echoes, so that's very promising indeed.
Anyway, that's most of what I was going to say. Any questions, feel free.
Nationals entry deadline this Friday (8th September).
Cheers!,
Nikhil.
