BELTON teenager Laura Twidale has retained her crown as the best girl tennis player in the county.

The 15-year-old entered this year's Lincolnshire County Closed Championships still ranked as the number one at both under-16 and under-18 level.

In 2009 Laura put her name up in lights with a clean sweep of honours at the same tournament, winning the under-16 singles as well as the under-18 singles and doubles, at just 14-years-old.

She was featured in Junior all-stars last week after continuing her excellent development with racquet in hand to move up to 92nd in the Great Britain under-18 girls' rankings.

But now Laura has increased her profile even further, jumping up to 78th in the national list.

That comes thanks to retaining her rankings as number one in Lincolnshire at both age groups in this year's competition at Boston Tennis Club.

Laura had no problems getting past elder opponent Grace Hall in the under-18 semi-final, cruising to a 6-3, 6-1 victory.

That paired Laura with her main rival for the number one under-18 spot, Kathie Dawson.

But Lincolnshire's number two had no answer to Laura's dominance, this time winning 6-1, 6-3 to retain her crown and number one spot.

It was not complete dominance from Laura though, losing out in the under-16 final.

Her credentials were given a thorough work over in the under-16 semi-finals by the county's top under-14 player Emily Hawkesworth.

Laura took the first set 6-2 but her younger opponent forced, and won, a tie-break in the second set.

But Laura still eased to the victory with a 6-3 victory in the deciding set.

That teed up a clash with the highly rated Madeline Verdegaal, who has a national rating of 7.2, just marginally lower than Laura's 7.1.

And Verdegral lived up to her billing to hit back after Laura had won the first set 6-4 by winning both the last two sets 6-3.

The under-16 final defeat may have seen Laura lose her title, but she retains her number one ranking at that age group.

But the big news was the fantastic jump into the top 80 girls' under-18 British rankings, still at just 15 years of age.