Today I took a trip to Nottingham for the final of the WTA International Aegon Open at the Nottingham Tennis Season.

I arrived in good time for an exhibition doubles match scheduled to start at Noon involving Jeremy Bates & Jocelyn Rae against Pat Cash and Anne Keothavong. However, as we're now deep into June and the height of the British Summer*, with about 10 mins to go it started raining - and it didn't stop until about 3:15. Deep Joy. Still, at least I had a good chat & laugh with the volunteer stewards. Obviously, the exhibition match was cancelled.

When the rain stops, it's usual to say that as the clouds cleared, play can get underway. Today, that would be inaccurate, as the clouds didn't clear, they simply got lighter and stopped weeping.

As it was now getting on a bit and we only had a 2 hour window of dry weather, the doubles final of Andrew Hlavackova & Shuai Peng against Gabriela Dabrowski and Zhaoxuan Yang was moved to Court 1.

The singles final was between the number 1 seed, and 17th in the World Rankings, Karolina Plskova of the Czech Republic against America's world number 89, Alison Riske.

This was a closely fought match as Riske had three break points at 5-4 to take the set, but Pliskova upped her game and served her way out of trouble. In the tie-break, Riske had more set points but Pliskova held on to close out the set.

The second set was just as close and Riske had chances to even the score. Again, a tie-break was needed and Pliskova displayed the greater composure to claim the title.

After the presentation ceremony, it was time to leave and within 10 mins of exiting the car park, the heavens opened again. Not only that, but the M1 southbound was closed due to some lone protester, which meant everyone was diverted along the direction I was travelling anyway.

I'm back in Nottingham in a couple of weeks for the final of the ATP tournament. Let's hope it's a bit drier!