TODMORDEN’S Megan Shackleton took silver in the women’s Class Four team event at the Slovenia Open with her Slovakian partner Alena Kanova.

In the final, Kanova made a great start to the first singles and led Nada Matic 2-1 but the world number five came back strongly to take the next two sets and give Serbia a 1-0 lead. Shackleton also made a good start against Borislava Peric-Rankovic and led 6-5 in the first set but the experience of the world number one understandably proved too much for the young GB player and she lost in three sets.

That left Kanova and Shackleton needing to win the doubles and the y fought back from 1-2 down to win the fourth set 12-10 and then take the deciding fifth 11-7.

Kanova then showed all her class and experience to Peric-Rankovic 3-2.

Shackleton then had to play Matic in the deciding singles and to her credit she started well and kept fighting but the experience of the Serbian was decisive in a 3-0 win to clinch the tie 3-2and the gold.

“There was a lot of pressure going into that match,” admitted Shackleton, “but I felt quite positive as I’d had a close match with her in Italy. I’ve never been in a pressure situation like that before so it was really hard but I’m proud that I played a good match and did the best I could do. It’s a really good experience and hopefully if I’m in that situation again I’ll deal with it better.”

In the singles event Shackleton pushed the German Sandra Mikolaschek all the way in her first group match but the world number six used all her experience to take the match 11-8 in the fifth.

The 16 year old showed all her fighting qualities in her second match, recovering from losing the first set against Martha Verdin of Mexico to win 3-1, but needed a win in her final match to progress and the world number 12 Zorica Popadic from Serbia had too much experience.