squash57 / racketball on the rock 2025
The Gibraltar Racketball scene kicked off a couple of years ago and in 2025 they hosted their first ever European Open Racketball event! With Grades from Men's & Ladies A through to O70s, there was something for everyone to get stuck in to and with players travelling from the UK, Guernsey and Spain it promised to be a really exciting weekend of action!
UK Racketball Rock the Rock!
As the poorly written pun explains, last weekend a contingent of UK Racketball players took a trip out to Gibraltar for the first ever Gibraltar Open Racketball / Squash57 championships!
This event set up and run by the Gibraltar National Ssquash Association, featured all of the usual series categories from men’s and ladies open all the way through to over 70s. Only lacking a doubles draw in comparison to the usual UK Racketball competitions although a highly entertaining Racketball Doubles exhibition was played, more on that later! It was a great to have a number of our UK Racketball regulars out on tour together and there was a real sense of camaraderie and group support across the event and in all of the matches. Even on the dance floor on the Friday night players party!
Racketball is a relatively new sport in Gibraltar with it only being properly picked up in the last couple of years, however off the back of such a successful event with a lot of positive media coverage and local viewing support, we can definitely see the sport going from strength to strength in the coming years. For their part, the Gibraltar organisers put on an absolutely fantastic weekend for all of the players and with things like the players party, free city bus passes and at club food provided for everyone, we don’t think we could’ve done a better job ourselves. You can check out the interviews that we did with Gibraltar TV above (pre event) and below (post event!)
And terms of UK Racketball player successes, we came away with four out of the six titles up for grabs which was a brilliant achievement! The winners and finalists are listed below, it was also really great to see a well supported ladies draw with a number of local players getting involved. Young Spanish national player Siena Hall Rogers showing her quality and composure taking her first Racketball title.
FINALISTS
A Grade - W - Mike Harris (Eng), Rup - Dec Christie (Gib)
B Grade - W - Siena Hall Rogers (Spain), Rup - Ben Anderson-Reif (Gue)
Ladies - W - Siena Hall Rogers (Spain), Rup - Amy Hunt (Eng)
O40s - W - Christian Navas (Gib), Rup - Adam Newnham (Eng)
O50s - W - James Gaston (Eng), Rup - Rob Taylor (Eng)
O60s - W - John Cordeaux (Eng), Rup - Graham Holmes (Eng)
O70s - W - Graham Greensall (Eng), Rup - John Potton (Gib)
Full results and draws can be found here:
rankedin.com/en/tournament/47884/squash-57-on-the-rock/draws/110180
You can also find the stream of the show court action on the Gibraltar Squash Youtube Channel here:
www.youtube.com/@gsalive8716
Doubles! While there wasn't a Doubles event in the line up this year, there was an incredibly entertaining best of three exhibition Doubles match played on the Saturday night between English pairing Tim Vail & Mike Harris and Gibraltan pairing Ivan Flores and Dec Christie. The English pair coming out on top 2/0 but highlighting the fun and variety that Doubles Racketball can provide. Hopefully this gets picked up more in Gib and we can have a full event next year!
We will definitely be looking to come back next year and would love to see more of our UK Racketball community making the trip. We will be getting the dates for the event as soon as possible from the organisers so we can get planning as early as we can. Definitely not want to miss out on, and off the back of it we are also looking forward to hopefully seeing a Gibraltar side in one or more of the Racketball International team event categories in Cardiff in September.
Thanks to everyone involved for making it such a memorable weekend!
