Aside from Earl Leader there were plenty of Bermudians in action on day two of the Bermuda Breeze Tennis Championships.

Returning home from New York to play in the event was Mandy Richardson, who lost to Shelly Bull 2-6, 6-4, 1-6 in the women’s over-55 singles, and she was keen to take her place in the tournament to ensure a competitive female event.

“One of the main reasons I wanted to compete is that I’ve asked myself probably from the age of 14, where are the girls?

“The volume of girls and women entering these tournaments is always very low, for many reasons, and I want to be the change I want to see in the world. In this case it’s a local level on the tennis court, but we have to be in it.

“I also wanted to challenge myself. There is a saying that if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.”

A vocal Richardson fought back strongly to take the second set and was one of the more animated players in action at Coral Beach and Tennis Club.

“The thinking behind that is self-talk helps,” Richardson said.

“I don’t have a cheerleader and at this level you don’t really have a coach anyway, so I think self-talk helps. It motivates me and in the second set I surprised myself.

“Shelly is a very good player, she is legit, so I felt better because I sometimes use the first set as a warm-up. In the beginning you don’t want to go out really strong because I didn’t want to injure myself. At the moment I’m injury free and I want to keep it that way, so I felt strong and thought I had a chance in the third set.”

Bull, Richardson’s opponent from Texas, is making her first visit to Bermuda and was thrilled to come away with the win.

“I couldn’t ask for a better time and I had an awesome opponent in Mandy,” Bull said

“She was getting a lot of things back that I didn’t think anybody would, so it was good and we had some great points in the middle set.

“Sportsmanship is important and if you smile and get along, it’s great. I didn’t have any hopes coming in. I just wanted to meet people and meet them from all over. I have one daughter here but my older daughter is coming from Florida tomorrow and they are a great support.”

There was notable Bermuda interest elsewhere with Terry Smith beating Roger Bailey 6-2, 6-2 in the round of 16 in the Men’s Over-65 tournament, but Eldon Daniels failed to make it through after losing 3-6, 3-6 to American Christopher Hayes.

In the Men’s over-70 event Wilfred Gonsalves lost in straight sets to No 1 seed Robert Graham, but he gained some compensation when partnering Earl Leader to victory over Bailey and Vijay Paul in the men’s over-65 doubles. In the same event, Timothy Petty partnered Leonardo Luque to victory.

Raymond Knight and playing partner John Payne lost in straight sets in the over-75 men’s doubles to top seeds Hugh Burris and Les Buck.