PERFORMANCE Player Dean Cooper Kirby travelled to Iceland for his latest Tennis Europe tournament accompanied on this occasion by his Totally Tennis coach, Jordan Frederick. This was the first time that both Cooper Kirby and Frederick had visited Iceland and both were amazed by the extreme weather and lack of darkness.

The Kópavogur Open 16 and under tournament was held at Tennishöllin in Kopavogi, home to the country’s only three indoor courts. After a bye in the first round, Cooper Kirby who was fourth seed, beat Jonathan Sund Nordahl from Denmark 6-3, 7-5 to find himself in the quarters up against seventh seed, a hard hitting Russian named Dmitrii Ivanov whom he defeated 6-2, 6-3.

In the semis, he faced top seed Maximilian Homberg but he was not deterred coming back from 5-4 down in the first set to win 7-5, 6-3 overall. This important win placed Cooper Kirby in his ever Tennis Europe final and he was up against second seed Nicolas Moser who was the stronger player winning the match and the title 7-5, 6-2 and Cooper Kirby took the very respectable runners-up position.

In the doubles, Cooper Kirby teamed up with Mark Owen Endler from Germany and they beat fellow Brit Cameron Timlin and his Danish partner Nordahl in the quarters 6-1, 6-4 and then defeated another Brit Zachary Cox and his partner Ivo Isqueiro from Portugal in a tougher semi-final encounter 7-6(5), 2-6, 10-5. In the final it was retribution time for Cooper Kirby who along with Endler beat the pairing of Homberg/Moser 7-5, 6-3 to win the event.

Frederick said: "Dean did well to reach both finals after defeating the number one seed in both cases. This tournament was a great learning curve and a very good result to be walking away with a doubles win and runner up in the singles. Great effort Dean!”