Nationals Preview Number 3!

​We come to our third and final British National Championships event preview covering the Junior, Men’s and Women’s Open draws!


Juniors - Reigning Champ - Dylan Kalar.

First up it’s really positive to have eight players in the Junior event, this is a category that we are really keen to keep growing year on year and we would love to be in a position to offer separate boys and girls draws in 2027. So if you are reading this and have some handy Junior players at your club that might fancy a change of scene from Squash for a weekend, get them involved next time!

Last year‘s winner, Dylan Kalar is away, leaving the previous runner up Lewis Vinten with a great shot at the title. However, in the other half of the draw we have the likes of Stourbridge's Jack Bennett and EPC's Aaron Suthi, both of whom are no strangers to the event and who have been improving year on year. It is by no means a clean path to the title...

With some other great young players spread across the two boxes of four, whoever makes it through to the final will have had to work hard to get there, and we could see some really exciting new talent coming through from this!


Women’s B Grade - Reigning Champ - Karen Bealey.

This is one of our favourite draws to watch play out at the event, as it brings together a big mix of players of all ages and experience. Many of them playing in their first major tournament and it’s really positive to see it growing to a full 16 draw for this year.

Last year‘s champion Bealey returns, but she will have stiff competition with a number of the entrants proving themselves across the UK Racketball series over the last 12 months.

It’s especially great to see some of our Guernsey Racketball friends coming across to take part in this one, they are a great sociable bunch and a sure sign of the continued growth of the game over in the Channel Isles.


Women’s A Grade - Reigning Champ - Amber Marshall.

Amber is back one more as top seed looking to add yet another Nationals title to her cabinet. She has England Women’s Captain Jasmin Kalar to get past on route, plus the likes of the returning to the scene Roxy Keshavarz, Series regular Linda Pritchard, and Stourbridge coach Bethany Fisher (doubling up with the Junior draw too) on the way through. Should be some great games across the group of 5 over the weekend!


Men’s ABC Grade - Reigning A Grade Champ - Mike Harris, B Grade Champ - Nick Lathbury, C Grade Champ - Dan Colbeck.

Harris is back once again looking to try and stay at the top of the tree for a 9th year. This time his challengers are Ted Jeal, doubling up for the first time, last year’s semi finalist Calli Smith, Guernsey’s #1 Janick Radford and Liverpool’s Matty Powell.

We also have plenty of extra depth to the draw along the way, with regular Series players like Elliott Smith, Callum Arnott and top Junior Lewis Vinten. Danny Berkley, Alex Rowlands and Damian Burgess are also bringing some Welsh flavour to the line up too.

With another packed out 32 draw it will be interesting to see how the matches play out and it divides out into the final A / B / C categories as we progress. Lots up for grabs in terms of Road to England selection points for 2027 too, so some important battles to be had! Straight away from RD 1 we have some tasty clashes and it is really positive to see the overall level of this draw grown each year.


So there we have it! Our Nationals preview for 2026. Just one week to go until the action is fully under way and we can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

A huge thank you to our amazing event sponsors for all they have provided to support the event, whether it be in funding, prizes or goodies for the player gift bags, it’s all massively appreciated.

See you all at Edgbaston and Sutton Coldfield very soon!