Saturday 7th February gave us our second 2026 UK Racketball Series Double Header weekend, with an East / West split this time. The Silverhook sponsored Broxbourne Open in the East, and the new Rhiwbina Satellite event in Cardiff in the West. 

We had an excellent entry for both events, again around 120 players competing between the two venues, Rhiwbina in particular seeing a lot of new Welsh faces involved which was really positive. The Welsh game is growing fast!

You can find the results from both events below, alongside the updated Series Singles & Doubles rankings:

SILVERHOOK BROXBOURNE OPEN: https://www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-2A-2026-Broxbourne-Open-Saturday-7th-February

RHIWBINA SATELLITE: https://www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-2B-2025-UK-Racketball-Rhiwbina-Open-Satellite-2025

2026 SERIES SINGLES RANKINGS: https://www.sportyhq.com/ranking/group/1727

2026 SERIES DOUBLES RANKINGS: https://www.sportyhq.com/ranking/group/1995

It was a day of quality performances across the board, but here are some of the notable standout efforts:

- The B Grade Doubles destroyers Stu Tyler & John Waller claimed another title without dropping a game in the Broxbourne event, continuing their 2025 dominance. The calls for promotion to A Grade are increasing in intensity...

- Regular adversaries Pat Osborn & John Cordeaux were back at it again in the Broxbourne O60s, meeting in the final once more. Cordeaux doing well to battle through some tough early battles against the likes of Fernandez & Muirhead, coming through both 2/1. In the end Osborn got the better of the final, taking it 2/0. Who knows what next round will bring!

- Some of the other category top dogs came through their draws unscathed in Broxbourne too, Ted Jeal and Steve Smith without dropping a game in the Open & O50s, Ian Graham being pushed hard by the always hard working and difficult to break down John Herbetko. Great to see these guys back in action in 2026!

- Across the boarder in Wales we had a great Ladies draw, featuring a number of UK Racketball first timers! Karen Bealey from Devon doing her England selection chances a lot of good by taking her first title of 2026!

- There was some home success for the Welsh players, with doubles duo Rowlands & Kilshaw taking their first ever Doubles title, and Frankie Pill the C Grade title in his first UK Racketball event! Runner up spots also going to Ian Fenner Evans in the O60s and James Turnbull on the O50s draws.

A huge thank you to our Broxbourne event sponsor Silverhook for their second year of support. They sorted us out with some great prizes and really added to the player experience! All in all, an awesome day of matches with a top bunch of players! Including some birthday funtimes for one of our faves, Paul Knocker Norton!

Can't wait for the next one at Hallamshire in March!

Yes that's right, it is our second UK Racketball 2026 Series weekend of the year and another big Double Header is coming our way!

We have two fantastic entry lists lined up for our East / West event split, starting with the ever popular Silverhook sponsored Broxbourne Open in Hertfordshire!

https://www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-2A-2026-Broxbourne-Open-Saturday-7th-February

This is one of our longest running Series events and always brings us some brilliant battles and worthy winners across the day's action. All draws are really well subscribed again (another sellout event,) with the O50s and O60s in particular giving us some seriously heavy hitters thrashing it out against each other over the day. Keep an eye out on the updates on the link above as the draws fill out across the day, important England Selection ranking points to be stolen on this one!

A massive thank you to club member Peter Iszatt and his company Silverhook for sponsoring the event for the second year. It makes a big difference in what we can do with these tournaments for the players so your support is hugely appreciated! Go well in the C Grade mate!

We then head over the Severn Bridge for the second and newest Welsh Series event in the calendar - the Rhiwbina Open Satellite in Cardiff! 

www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-2B-2025-UK-Racketball-Rhiwbina-Open-Satellite-2025

This comes off the back of a really positive year for the Welsh game last year, with a sell out Welsh Open in July, and an incredibly well recieved and attended International Teams event in September, both at Cardiff Squash Club. Given the rise in interest in the game over the river we knew it was the right call to have a second Series event there this year! Hosted by the lovely Rhiwbina club, who's committee and players are always keen to drive new initiatives forward, we think this could be a great regular venue for us going forwards.

It is great to see so many Welsh players involved in the draws and we hope that this helps continue the positive move forward that the game is having there. Particularly in the Ladies and A Grade draws where local players outnumber the travelling English!

Good luck to everyone involved in both events, it should be a great day of action, and thank you to both venues for hosting us.

Keep an eye out for results and updates from across the day's play on our UK Racketball Facebook page!

We officially started the 2026 Karakal UK Racktball Series on Saturday 24th January with a big North & South Doubleheader weekend!

Running simultaneously we had the Scottish Racketball Open at Newlands LTSC in Glasgow, alongside the Trojans Southampton Satellite event. Over 120 players competing across the various categories at both events which was fantastic to see.

You can find the full results from both events here:

Scottish Open Glasgow - www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-1A-2024-Scottish-UK-Racketball-Open-Newlands-Sat-24th-January

Trojans Satellite Southampton - www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-1B-2026-UK-Racketball-Trojans-Open-Satellite-2026

Photos and some video clips from the Southampton event can be found here - ​www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1845024863111726&type=3

A few notable results from the events...

SCOTTISH OPEN:

- 2025 Ladies England Captain Jasmin Kalar takes a remarkable Men's B Grade and Ladies Open Double Gold after 6 matches in one day!

- Paul Knocker Norton (2025 Series Doubles Champion) resumed business as usual in the category, taking the A Grade Doubles with his partner Matt Bedwell once again. Adding it to the O40s title on the day too!

- Ryan Loska swapped the O40s category for the Men's A Grade, and manages to battle through to the final! Managing to take down some of our top Series A Grade regulars along the way. Scottish National Champion and Number 1 Matt Bedwell proving too hot to handle in the Final.

- The O70s box draw of 5 players provided us with some brilliant battles across the day. In the end it came down to Paul Loska vs the recently aged up Graham Holmes, both Series regulars at the top end of their age groups. Loska taking a tight 2/1 win to secure his first Series title of 2026!

TROJANS SATELLITE:

- A really well subscribed Ladies draw giving us some great matches across the day. Local Dorset player Sam Burnand doing well to come through a tough group and then take down Devon's Karen Bealey in a well fought final.

- Local Scot (who should really have been playing in Glasgow!) Martin Buchan managed to get through a really competitive and balanced B Grade draw to secure his first UK Racketball Series win. Going so far as to take the B Grade Doubles title with his partner Tom Sanderson too! Another Double Golder for our first outing of the year!

- The final match of the day - the O70s Final between John Herbetko and Paul Hudson Oldnall gave us an absolute treat to watch, with it going the full distance, 3/2 and 11/8 in the 5th to the wily Herbetko. Fantastic quality of Racketball from both guys, also lovely chaps to have on the scene!


Overall it was really positive as well to see that the new addition of the C Grade draw for the Open category was well recieved, with loads of new faces getting involved in both events. Hopefully this continutes to encourage more players to give the events a go and get in the mix with our great community!

Thanks to everyone who played and of course our host clubs for being so welcoming and giving us two great venues to play at. 

It's the Silverhook sponsored Broxbourne Open and the brand new Rhiwbina Satellite up next on the 7th February. Another double header weekend! The Broxbourne event is sold out already, but there is still space and time to get your name down for the Rhiwbina Cardiff Satellite event if still keen! You can enter via the below link:

www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-2B-2025-UK-Racketball-Rhiwbina-Open-Satellite-2025

Hope to see loads of you there! 

A huge huge sponsor thank you...

With our 2026 series kicking off imminently (next Saturday!) we do have one very important thing to say.

A huge thank you to all of our UK Racketball 2026 Series sponsors for their continued support in helping make what we do possible. These sponsors are either players who are regulars on the UK Racketball circuit, or close relations too, and it is so great from our perspective to have them invested in the game so much. That community involvement and support is a big part of what makes the UK Racketball Series so great and we are very luck to have you all on board.

So thank you once again, and we will do our best to chuck you the occasional decent draw or leisurely start time once in a while...

If anyone is interested in helping support either the UK Racketball series or any of our events as a sponsor please feel free to get in touch at [email protected] for more info.
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In the meantime, get those brand new shoes worn in, those rackets restrung and grips regripped (with Karakal's finest obviously) and we can;t wait to see you back in Series action soon!