GOur next trip out in the 2024 Karakal UK Racketball Series was to the Midlands and to Leamington Tennis & Squash Club for the West of England Open!

A long standing UK Racketball host venue, LLTSC has always had a great set up for our events with 6 very well maintained courts and a lovely bar set up. We had another sell out event this year, with 65 players coming from all over - from Exeter to Sunderland to Bexley! With the British Nationals just 2 weeks away, this was one last chance for our community to get some last minute match practice in, and the strength of the draws reflected this. The O40s, O50s and O70s being particularly combatitive!

Starting with the O70s, with the two top seeds in the Nationals at opposite halves of the draw, plus some other strong entries, there was another really high quality set of matches. Notably Graham Greensall being push hard by Geoff Wright to take a 3/1 win. In the end though, Ian Graham proved imperious throughout, winning through the day without dropping a game, including the final vs Greensall. Can anyone stop him in two weeks time? The O60s lost its two top seeds Osborn and Cordeaux in the lead up to the weekend, meaning that the draw really opened out with plenty of opportunity for the rest to get stuck in. With a busy 16 entry there were some great fixtures throughout, Mark Banfield in particular being pushed hard by first Terry Horne (2/1) in Rd1, and then Gary Preston (a very tight 2/0) in the Semi. These tough games clearly set him up well though, as he managed to battle past one of the Series front runners Robin Chipperfield in the Final in a hard fought 2/0 win. Taking his first UK Racketball Series title for a number of years (in his own words!)

The O50s was an absolute brutal of a draw, with a number of players in the mix that on a different day would be top seeds in the category! As such we had a battle royale of a group stage, with all three groups of four players having some incredibly tight 2/1 games. Some will have left the day feeling a tad hard done by given the quality of the play. In the end the final four were Wase (who nearly lost out first match!), Billington (who got a bit lucky with the w/d of Jason Russell from his group having finished top), Davies and Fernandez. Billington did really well to overcome a resurgent Fernandez (coming back from a heavy knee operation), but couldn't get past the relentless Wase, who backed up well after his near miss at the start of the day, taking the win in a quality 2/0 Final.

Another very strong O40s draw of 12 players had several of the categories top dogs getting some good hitting in before the big event in two weeks time. A notable match here was the Griggs / Talbot group stage, the winner not only progressing to the semis, but also gaining the last O40s England Team spot for the upcoming Home Internationals in September! The guys didn't disappoint, with a really hard fought 2/1 win going to Griggs, whose ability to absorb everything Talbot threw at him and then counter well when given the opportunity did the damage. Barry's loss somewhat mollified by the fact that he ended up finishing best second place in his group and progressing to the semis anyway, to meet Ryan Loska. Loska and Craig Chappell ended up making their way through to the final, where in the last match of the day, an absolutely faultless performance from Craig gave him a shock 2/0 win over Loska. The first time that he has beaten him! Good signs ahead for his O40s Nationals campaign, with Loska as top seed in the O45s wanting to put that one behind him!

The B Grade was a busy 10 player event, with two boxes of 5 getting plenty of tight games in leading toward a Saturday evening final. Again here there was a great balance of standards and some quality 2/1 games throughout. In the end Nick Jenkins scraped through based on games won/lost over Hannah Davies and Stefan Rapacz (Nick beating Hannah and losing to Stefan, who in turn lost to Hannah!) He met Tom Clark in the final, who was a bit more clinical with his routhe through, still though being pushed hard against Rebecca Symmonds and Dan Stone with tight 2/1 wins. Clark in the end having too much for a rather tired Jenkins (who did Doubles too,) winning the final 2/1 with a strong 11/3 finish in the 3rd!  Due to having two Ladies entrants and a little bit of court space we also had a straight Ladies final between Rebecca Symmons and Hannah Davies in the evenning, which didn't disappoint as despite both players having had some brutal games across the day in the B Grade, they played some quality Racketball with Symmons winning 2/1. Positive signs for her Nationals campaign at EPC!

Finally to the Doubles and the A Grade. Both slightly smaller in uptake than usual but that didn't diminish the quality, with some very strong top seeds! In the A the Nationals Open (Mike Harris) and O35s (Jason Pike) #1s were in the mix, and then in the Doubles Chappell & Loska headed the field. In the end it was the highest ranked that came through, with Harris overcoming Pike 2/0 in the Final of the A, and the O40s duo winning the Doubles. Though they were pushed hard by the Hallamshire pairing of Hindmarch & Glencross who took them all the way to 2/1, just missing out in the final game.

Full draws and results from the day can be found here: 

www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-6-West-of-England-Racketball-Open-6th-July-Leamington

All in all a quality day of games at a lovely club. Plus an England football win to boot! Thanks all for taking part and to Jason Pike and LLTSC for hosting us so well once again.

You can check out what it means for the latest Series and Doubles rankings for 2024 here:

Series - www.sportyhq.com/ranking/group/1727

Doubles - ​www.sportyhq.com/ranking/group/1995

The Digital Office British Racketball National Championships draws and schedules are out!

The full line ups and all the matches for the 19th/20th/21st July British National Racketball Championships at Edgbaston Priory are out, and what a weekend we have in store for our players.

With entries from all over the UK this should be a really fantastic event and we can't wait for the action to start. A mix of returning Champions in as top seeds looking to regain their titles, to new faces and challengers looking to cause some upsets and take the glory! You can find all the necessary info on our Sporty HQ event page via the below link:

https://www.sportyhq.com/.../The-Karakal-British-National...

A massive thanks to our amazing event sponsors for their support and allowing us to make this our biggest and best offering to our entrants to date. From top quality tournament shirts, entry gift bags, Saturday night party and end of event prizes, we have been able to do so much this time round!

Look forward to seeing over 200 of our UK Racketball community across the weekend, all supporters and spectators very much welcome and we will also be trying to provide as much as we can in terms of live streaming and photo updates as we go.
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Not long to go...

LEAMINGTON LOOMS - THE LAST SERIES EVENT PRE NATIONALS ON IT'S WAY 6TH JULY...


That is right! The last event of this first half of the 2024 Karakal UK Racketball Series is here and we are back to one of our longest hosting venues - Leamington Tennis & Squash Club. It is always a great place to visit, with 6 fantastic Squash Courts and a lovely and welcoming bar and club area.

This year's event is another Series sellout with some big draws across the various categories. Clearly lots of our fraternity looking to get some last minute matchplay before the British Nationals later in the month!

Outside of the normal service of Series ranking points being up for grabs (more on that later,) there is added spice to this event for several players, as this is the last qualifying tournament for the Road to selection to represent England in the inaugral Home Internationals Racketball team event in September in Glasgow. While most of the line ups have already been selected, there a very literal Head to Head for selection between these players:

Over 40s - Colin Griggs & Barry Talbot
Over 50 - Jason Russel & Nick Billington
O70s - (fighting it out for 2 spots) Stephen Uttley, Hans Billson, Geoff Wright, Francois De Villiers

So pending the results from the event, the above could be selected for England! Good luck to all of them and we can't wait to see who battles through.

On the Series ranking front, there is a rare chance for the chasing pack in both the Singles and Doubles rankings to catch up with Paul Norton as he is away for this event. This means that Ryan Loska who sits in 2nd in the Series and 3rd in the Doubles will be keen to steal back some ground. Robin Chipperfield, Patrick Osborn, Alexis Smith and Paul Dodds (the next in line in the Series) will all be looking to push their cause forward too! 

With some very busy draws - 16 in the O60s, 12 in the 40s, 50s and B Grade, and 8 in the 70s, it is going to be a great day of matches. Can't wait to get stuck in.

Thanks to Jason Pike and the team at Leamington LTSC for hosting us for another year, keep your eye out on the day for some more live stream action, and of course the usual photo and Instagram update shenanigans!

You can find the full draws and schedule on Sporty HQ here:

https://www.sportyhq.com/tournament/view/Event-6-West-of-England-Racketball-Open-6th-July-Leamington

*DEVON RETAIN THE OPEN TITLE, WILTSHIRE & YORKSHIRE GRAB THEIR FIRST*

A busy weekend of Intercounty team Racketball matches took place at Wolverhampton Tennis & Squash Club on the 15th & 16th June, with the Open, B Grade and Ladies Intercounty titles up for grabs. It was our busiest year to date of Intercounty action, with 18 teams battling it out across the event, and there were some brilliant games for all to watch across the 6 courts at the venue.

In the A Grade, the standout battles were:

- brutal first round battles between Morris and Haggarty in Shrops vs Warks (Haggarty managing to overturn a 0/2 deficeit to take down the O50s top dog,) and between Moverly and Cutting in Yorks vs Kent, where Fiona did likewise come back from 2/0 down to take a 12/10 in the 5th win vs a very valiant effort from Josh. Dives included!
Bonus note to the Jones vs Norton battle at #2 string which was another 5 set throwdown, which ultimately decided the overall tie result in Yorkshire's favour as Knocker won 3/2.

- a really high quality battle at #1 string between Miles Jenkins (Surrey) & Guy Pearson (Warks) in the afternoon, with Jenkins' physicality and relentless pace of play proved too much for the ball skill and creativity of Pearson, beating him 3/1. 

- A very tight Final between Surrey and Devon, where Surrey took 3rd & 4th string to put a huge amount of pressure on the reigning Champions, but Devon through solid performances from Snell, Gregory and Harris, managed to see it through with a 3/2 overall team win!


The Ladies had four different teams in for the first time and with such a positive weekend of games we are hopeful of building on this success and introducing more next year! Some of their highlights were:

- Cornwall taking down Devon 8 games to 6 in the all Southern jam first vs cream first derby battle!

- A brilliantly entertaining Lincs vs Yorks fixture with a great 5 set Doubles match win to Yorkshire to round off the match.

- Devon doing well to push Yorkshire close in the final match on the Sunday, only just losing out to the overall Champions 7 games to 10 with several tight 3/2 battles involved.


And finally the B Grade, where it was great to see lots of returning faces from last year's inaugral event, plus some new sides and line ups. Events of note were...

- Wiltshire's ability to grind out the result they needed! This year's Champions were pushed all the way in each of their fixtures, taking down Derbyshire 10/8, Yorkshire 10/9 and then ''chopping'' (not really) Surrey 11/5 in the Final! Kudos to Nev Buckle's side with some big perfomances from all throughout, notably Adam Giles & Calli Smith at 1 & 2 who went undefeated all weekend, with Calli using the experience to spend approximately 453667278463 hours on court each match... (Schedule destroyer...)

- The Surrey B & Shropshire B Semi final was another tight battle, finishing 8/6 to the eventual finalists, coming down to overall games countback after it finished 2/2 in match wins!

All in all, a really great weekend of Racketball and catching up with loads of our Series regulars and not so regulars. A huge thank you to Wolverhampton Club and Mike Harris (Mr Squash Mike Harris that is) for hosting us so excellently. It's a lovely venue and they are really pushing hard on all things Squash & Racketball there so an incredibly positive set up.

Also thank you to all of our county Captains and Managers for their hard work in getting sides together and chasing up players. It is a thankless task sometimes and your efforts are greatly appreciated! 

We will be back on the same weekend next year (14th & 15th June 2025) so get the date in your diaries, we hope to build it bigger and better!

Full results can be found on our Intercounty page here: https://www.uk-racketball.com/inter-counties.html

Pictures and video clips from the matches can be found on our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1390864495194434&type=3