​Broxbourne 2024 Series Event 2 Review - Busiest Series Day A Big Success!

The strong draw line ups didn't disappoint on Saturday as we had some fantastic battles across all of the categories at Broxbourne Sports Club. Plenty of shocks and suprises from start to finish and some really entertaining match ups too. Check out the draws and results on the below link and read on for our post event wrap up...

BROXBOURNE 2024

In the Over 70's, current National Champion Graham Greensall started his 2024 campaign in imperious form, not dropping a game on the way to winning his first title of this Series. Back from injury and with the bit between his teeth he could well be an early candidate for overall Series success come the end of this year... In the O60's, another National Champion and one-to-beat Patrick Osborn managed to come through a tough draw, battling past local player Richard Hicks in a quality final 2/1, after Hicks himself took down club mate Mark Blake in the semis 2/1. 

In the Over 50's, it was the turn of the ''youth'' as newly 50 years old Andy Hopwood came through another tough batch of matches, dropping games to Paul Dodds and Mark Banfield on the way to the final, where he faced another Broxbourne legend David Acquet. It was a bit of a topsy turvy match with both players having patches of being on top with some quality hitting, mixed in with some loose errors. Hopwood eventually managing to see it through 2/0 in two tight games. Two of the Series heavyweights were lined up to meet in the O40's final and duly did, in a high quality match of the event. 2023 Series Champion Alexis Smith taking on previous Champion Ryan Loska in a brutally tight 2/1 battle in well over 40 mins of play. Smith's aggressive attacking play eventually managing to break through Loska's relentless retrieval and absorbing play, 11/8 in the 3rd. The fist pump and shout from the usually taciturn Smith highlighting how good a win it was!

A very busy 16 draw in the B Grade threw up some great games all the way through and it was great to see some new faces in the mix. In the end it was Dover's Stu Tyler, Essex's Mike Bagguley, Poole's James Dean and Aylesbury's Tristan Vasey who made it through the boxes to the semis, with Bagguley putting Tyler's great run in the comp to an end 2/0 and Vasey battling past Dean 2/0 in a long duel between two very similarly styled players. Another great match ensued in the Final, ending up with Bagguley taking his first UK RB Series title (leaving Vasey rather despondant having missed out for a third time of asking at the Finals stage!) A promotion to the A Grade looks to be on the way...

We had a great line up in both the Open and the Doubles categories, with 8 and 16 draws repectively. Some of the top regular Series players came to the party in both the draws and the quality was really high throughout the day. In the Open, Colin Griggs came through his box without dropping a game, a strong 2/0 performance vs Callum Arnott a notable effort. In Box Two, Oliver Staunton continued to show his impressive improvement in the game, as he beat the likes of Norton / Kershaw and Russell to get through to the Final. (Bearing in mind he only moved into A Grade at the start of last year from B!) However, the days efforts took its toll on the legs of the Hampshire man as the relentless Griggs dominated the T and didn't allow him to get any real foothold in the game, taking it 2/0.

The Doubles was an incredibly strong line up (perhaps the strongest in depth we have ever had) and it threw up a whole host of upsets along the way. Pre event ones to watch Phipps/Strong and Kershaw/Staunton not even making it out of the group stages! It came down to a Final between two underdog sides, Luke Bishop & David Marshall taking on Patrick Osborn & Gary Naidoo having both recorded some superb wins across the day. In the end the nous of the incredibly experienced (possibly more than anyone on the circuit now!) Osborn and the quality lines and retrievals of Naidoo were too much for the other pair to get past, taking the match and the title 2/0. It was fantastic to see such high quality Doubles play across the day and so many sides involved, getting to the point that we need an A and B Grade Doubles category now!

A big thank you to all who took part and the club for hosting us once again (on what was a very busy day generally for the venue.) We look forward to coming back next year! For those who missed out on getting into the event this time, we hope to be able to make it possible for more entries next year.

Finally, if you want to catch up on some of the matches, you can see the World Squash Federation's (thanks Pat Osborn) coverage of the event Court 1 matches on this Youtube page:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_w3U7IewDE&list=PLaEQmbckDBIs8f92jlMNubfqSAWgXbeRI