ANNA Hopkin got very little sleep after her first evening at the Commonwealth Games – the 21-year-old intends to get a much better night before a maiden individual final today.
Hopkin enjoyed a dream start to the competition in the Gold Coast with a bronze in the 4x100m freestyle relay alongside roommate Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, Freya Anderson and Ellie Faulkner, and she followed that up on day two with the heats and semi-finals of the 50m freestyle.
The 21-year-old went 25.29 seconds in the morning, and was four hundredths slower in the evening as she qualified in seventh for the final.
And the Chorley swimmer hopes a full day of recovery will give her time to get her legs back and challenge for a medal in the freestyle dash as she looks to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Sarah Vasey and Aimee Willmott, who took golds on the first two days of competition.
She said: “I wanted to go a bit quicker. I think it’s down to my legs from the relay but I’ve got a day to recover for the final. I’m loving it and taking it all in and trying to enjoy the atmosphere and not let it get the better of me.
“We’ve had an amazing start to the competition and I’m really proud of Sarah and everyone else.
“I’m really happy, I just have to make sure I get everything right for the final.
“I definitely didn’t sleep that well after the relay so I have to make sure that I get that right.
“I’m in a room with Siobhan, it’s nice having her there. We’ve also got Aimee and Sarah in our flat, so we’ve got two gold medals already.”
Meanwhile, Laura Massaro was a confident winner over New Zealander Amanda Landers-Murphy to progress to the women’s squash singles quarter-finals after securing an 11-8, 13-11, 11-8 victory.
“I thought Amanda played well, considering her ranking. She slotted in some low kills and was a bit better than I was expecting,” she said. “I was feeling fairly confident. It was always going to be tough as I’ve never played Amanda in a tournament.
“You can’t really look too far ahead because if you don’t take care of today you’re not playing tomorrow.”
The 34-year old, a three-time silver-medallist at the Games, has a stern test in today’s quarter finals where she is up against Tesni Evans - the in-form Welsh number one who has beaten Massaro in their last two meetings.
Elsewhere, Natalie Haythornthwaite helped England’s netball team - coached by Tracey Neville - continued their unbeaten start to the tournament with a 74-49 victory over Malawi.
Darwen teenager Niamh Robinson has a busy weekend in the pool where she is representing the Isle of Man.
The 18-year-old competed in the heats of the 200m breaststroke in the early hours of this morning and tomorrow takes part in the 200m individual medley and also the 100m breaststroke.
Robinson began her Games campaign on Thursday where she finished in seventh place in her heat in the 50m breaststroke.
npower is the Official Partner of Team England and is giving our athletes the power of support by recording a brand new version of their anthem, Jerusalem. To listen to the track visit npower.com/teamengland
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