Scottish Open 2024 Preview!
Our first event of 2024 is the Scottish Open in Glasgow at the wonderful Newlands Tennis and Squash Club. Last year was the first time we visited the club, and we had a blast meeting up with our RASTA Scottish Racketball cousins and doing battle. In the Open we have last year's National Championships finalists in opposite boxes as Mike Harris and Matt Bedwell aim to revisit their England/Scotland duel once more. Neither have straightford run ins though, with both having some quality opposition in their groups. A large B Grade entry has a great mix of Scottish and English players in it and with such a variety of players it is hard to call the favourite. It will be a new Champion this time round however as last year's Paul Norton is playing the O40s category. Leading in to that, Norton faces the start of the full Series return of the relentless Ryan Loska, who will be a very tough nut to crack in the first event of the year. Coupled with some Scottish interest too this should be a good challenge to last year's Series runner up! The Over 50s features a half-n-half of Scottish and English talent too, with Series regular Paul Dodds facing some interesting challenges from the likes of Mike Sutherland, Paul Geri and Kevin Dudley. Tough one to call this one! A solid 60s line up has Robin Chipperfield, Mike Fleming and Collis Sheik as it's top trumps in the two boxes, however with a large Scottish interest here too we could be looking at some upsets along the way. Last year's British Racketball Open Finalist Joe Hely is the one to watch in the O70s draw, but with there being a draw of 5 players its going to be a good test for the stamina of all involved as they battle it out for 4 matches each through the day. It is great to have a busy Ladies draw, with 5 Scottish players taking part, junior and adults alike. Top work Matt Bedwell and the Newlands team for getting a good Ladies uptake and we hope this is positive signs for things to come going forward! Finally, the Doubles entry features 5 quality pairings, all looking to make an early impression on the new Doubles Series rankings for 2024. Top dogs have to be Norton/Bedwell, but they will face stiff challenges from the experienced pairings of Dodds/Loska and Manson/Hindmarch. All to play for! You can find the full draws and schedule below on Sporty HQ. As always we will be trying to keep the photo updates and live streaming coming throughout the day, so please tune in on our UK Racketball Facebook page or Instagram to keep in touch with the action! SCOTTISH OPEN 2024
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Yep that is right, a new year means a new UK Racketball Series!
Who is going to be the next in line to become Series Champion and take Alexis Smith off the podium? Who will become our inaugral UK Racketball Doubles Series Champion as the top rated Racketball Doubles player? Lots of new exciting battles and venues in store across the Series and we can't wait to get things rolling! With around 800/900 entrants across our events last year we hope to go bigger and better this time round. So get your name down for our competitions on Sporty HQ via the below link and get involved! UK RACKETBALL TOURNAMENTS Don't forget we try and take loads of action and mid event snaps or all of our tournaments across the Series. You can find these all uploaded on to our Facebook page at:
www.facebook.com/UKRacketballSeries/photos_albums In the meantime, here are a few of our absolute faves from a brilliant year of competition, socialising and just generally spending time with a brilliant bunch of Racketballers! Here's to more of the same in 2024... the uk racketball 2023 series comes to a close with some very worthy series top ranked players!5/12/2023 Our 2023 Karakal UK Racketball Series was topped off by a fantastic day of singles and doubles action at the lovely Grantham Squash Club in Lincolnshire on a foggy and snowy Saturday 2nd December. (Great Racketball weather!) It was a busy day, what with a full Singles Series event running alongside a far busier than usual Doubles tournament (the National Doubles being a Major ranking event with multiple age categories.) There were some fantastic battles throughout the day and the Series rankings final placings came down to the very last match of the tournament! We couldn't have asked for a tighter, more entertaining end to a fantastic Series of matches. The full results can be found on Sporty HQ HERE Now, leading on to our top of the table finishers! Coming down to the tightest of margins, Alexis Smith from Dorset pipped Paul Norton of Yorkshire to the 2023 Series title by the finest of marging. Just 3,560 points to 3,475, the final Doubles match of the National Doubles being the deciding factor! Both players have been incredibly consistent across the Serfies, both being O40s and Doubles specialists, and have regularly battled it out on court. Huge congratulations to Alexis for his persistence across the year and he gets free 2024 Series membership alongside a host of Karakal and Jaguar Nutrition prizes as his reward! Commiserations to Paul for just missing out. He does however come away with a new reward - the Doubles MVP (Most Valuable Player) prize for the most Doubles category wins across the Series! Sitting just below the two in 3rd place was O70s top dog Graham Greensall of Warwickshire, who himself has been a fantastic competitor all the way through, and woiuld have been himself a well deserved winner but for the Doubles expertise of Norton & Smith. We then had (to round out the top 8): 4: Patrick Osborn 5: John Cordeaux 6: Amber Marshall 7: Mike Harris 8: Colin Griggs Very well done to everyone who finished in the prize positions, we will be in touch to sort out your fantastic Karakal and Jaguar Nutrition sponsored prizes ASAP. You can see the full rankings on Sporty HQ below: 2023 Series Rankings We are looking forward to 2024 already! After the New Year we have the first event - the Scottish Open in Glasgow on 27th January, and then roll on monthly (or twice monthly sometimes) from there. Thank you to everyone who took part in our Series, from 12 year olds to 85 year olds we had a brilliantly varied selection of entrants, over 800 in total across all our events. A really great demonstration of how inclusive and fun to participate in the sport is. Some close friends are made and some exciting rivalries are discovered and we can wait to explore it all more going forward. The final event of the 2023 Karakal UK Racketball Series kicks off on Saturday 2nd December at Grantham Squash Club and we have a bumper National Racketball Doubles Championships draw for this year! The National Doubles is offering a variety of categories as opposed to the usual UK Racketball Series event, with Open, Mixed, Over 40s, 50s, and 60s events all up for grabs! With 25 different pairings across the draws this is the biggest Racketball Doubles event we have run to date, which is great to see for the progression of the sport. There promises to be some titanic battles in the Open, with 3 out of the 5 teams having won one or more Series events this year, and it features two of our top 3 Series players - Paul Norton (with Craig Chappell) and Alexis Smith (with James Allingham), going head to head in the race for the 2023 Series title! In the O40s, the duo will meet again, Norton (this time with Andy Beel) and Smith (with Allingham again) will clash once more, in a very busy draw of 11 teams. Also in the mix at the top end are the experienced pairings of Osborn/Fennell and Jenkins/Griggs, both of whom will be looking to upset the seedings. In the O50s event (a box of 4 sides,) the two standout pairings of Hall & Billington and Wase & Davies look to be the ones to watch. All 4 players are at the top end of the age group and are highly experienced and crafty campaigners. The O60s has another good group - 5 pairings this time, and the duo of Osborn/Cordeaux are definitely the ones to beat. The British Open Championships winning pairing are incredibly strong at this age category and with their left/right hand combination have a lot of variety to have to battle against. Finally, we also have a straight best of 5 game Mixed Doubles Final, between Patrick Osborn (again, busy man!!) and Zoe Fennell taking on Elspeth Edwards and Mike Harris. Osborn and Fennell are very experienced in playing together but will have to use all their skill and craft against the pairing of British Ladies National and Open Champs 2023 runner up Edwards and British Men's National and Open Champs 2023 winner Harris, who will be determined to provide an upset! We also have the usual UK Racketball Singles event categories running across the day alongside the Doubles too. A lot of players competing in both disciplines!
In the Open, Colin Griggs (British National & Open B Grade Champion) heads up the draw and will face stiff competition from the likes of Steve McLelland and Chris Burton along the way. Griggs' relentlessly consistent gameplay will prove a challenge for his opponents to break down! We have a 3 way Ladies Open playoff and it is great to see Series regular Amanda Wykes joined by two local players in the line up. As we look to drive the Ladies game forward in 2024 the more new players we can get involved the better! The O40s sees the return to the one of the top title winners in the Series history - Ryan Loska, who looks to get back to his winning ways in his first (and only) event of 2023! Looking to take him down are the crafty Nick Jenkins, and the local legend Nigel Truman, both doubling up in categories alongside Loska. Battle Royale recommences one last time in the O50s, with Chris Wase looking to close out another consistent Series with a win, but having to face off a tough line up of Hall, Billington, Buckle, Davies and Dodds. An outside bet for an upset is Mr iPRO Sports himself Andy Murray, who makes his return after nearly a year out due to surgery. Finally we have another well subscribed line up for the O60s and O70s events too. Both age groups really showing strength in depth and in numbers this year. With British Open Finalists Paul Halstead and Gary Preston in separate boxes and Robin Chipperfield heading the 3rd, there could be some really great games all the way through the day culminating in some top semis and finals! Graham Greensall looks to finish off a fantastic year of O70s action, having taking both British Open and Nationals titles, can he round things off with one more Series category win? With every single Series ranking point gained here making a clear difference to the end of Series final ranking, there is lots on the line for all involved and there should be a great demonstration of quality Racketball across the caregories. A huge thank you to Grantham Squash Club for hosting us, we are looking forward to getting stuck in at a new venue! Full draws and schedule can be found at Sporty HQ here: SERIES FINALS |
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