Lisa Aitken and Robyn Young take squash bronze in Helsinki

Lisa Aitken finished the week unbeaten as Scotland's women stole the show at the European Team Championship in Helsinki yesterday, defeating Austria 2-0 to claim a bronze medal in Division Two. The men's squad then narrowly failed to repeat last year's bronze in Warsaw as they fought out a nerve-shredding third place play-off with Germany in Division One.

squash racket and ball on the wooden background. Racquetball equipment. Squash ball and squash racket on the court next to a red line. Photo with selective focus

The Scots women had few expectations after coming up from Division Three last year, yet it took Friday’s 2-1 defeat by Germany to deny them promotion to the top flight. They returned yesterday to beat Austria in the bronze medal match, and that will ensure a top-three seeding at next year’s event. Aitken trounced Jacqueline Peychar to complete a clean sweep of five victories this week before Robyn Young secured overall victory by beating Katarina Glavic in three straight games.

Scotland and Germany went head-to-head for the men’s bronze medals for the sixth year in a row, and although Doug Kempsell and Kevin Moran comfortably overcame Rudi Rohrmuller and Valentin Rapp, Alan Clyne and Greg Lobban lost to Simon Rosner and Raphael Kandra.

That left the overall score tied at 2-2, with both teams winning seven games each, but Germany took bronze after totalling 133 points to 127.