scottish open 2024 review!

Our first event of 2024 was the Scottish Open in Glasgow at the wonderful Newlands Tennis and Squash Club on Saturday 27th January. Last year was the first time we visited the club, and we had a blast meeting up with our RASTA Scottish Racketball cousins and doing battle and were looking forward to the return!

It was great to have a good group of English UK Racketballers travelling up to compete and also see some new Scottish faces at the same time. Positive signs for the growth of the game both sides of the border! In the Over 70s we had a really competitive draw of 5 players, all very similar standard. In the end it came down to a three way tie between Joe Hely, Chris Quick and Trevor Musson, all with 4 wins and 1 loss between them! Hely sneaking the title based his on games won/loss % over Quick. Some quality games in this category acoss the day with some incredible court coverage too.

The O60s had 9 entrants across two boxes so was another very busy category. Robin Chipperfield showing his status as top seed by coming through to take the title, but not before he was pushed all the way by Mike Fleming, battling through 2/1 11/8 in the 5th game in a really entertaining and free flowing final. The Over 50s and 40s were a little quieter in comparison, both being boxes of 4, but this didn't stop there being some good match ups. In the O50s Paul Dodds got his first title of 2024 on the board, coming through a competitive group, with fellow UK Racketball Northerner Kevin Dudley finishing in 2nd.
The O40s feautured two of the top players in that age category, as Ryan Loska and Paul Norton took down their Scottish opponents to meet in the Final. Norton to date has never taken a game off of Loska, until now, where in probably the match of the day they fought it out in a brutal showdown. Loska eventually coming through 2/1 winner, 8/11, 11/9, 11/9 to take the title. If this is anything to go on for the rest of this season we could have some real treats in store!

The B Grade was a busy line up as always, with 13 players involved, and it was great to see a load of new Scottish entrants in this category. In the end, Neil Bennett and Jesse Mills both came through their groups to meet in the final, with Bennett's fast paced positive hitting getting him through the control and long reach of Mills in a (tighter than the scores suggest) 2/0 win. We did have a Ladies box of 5 initially but with two (sisters) dropping out due to illness we were reduced to a box of 3, with all playing best of 5 game matches. Another new face to the scene - Sabrina Tengku Nur came through as Champion over Newlands local players Cara Young and Niamh Wilson, her quality movement and retrievals being particularly impressive throughout. Fingers crossed we see the three in action in future events!

Finally the Doubles and the Open. There was one standout pairing out of the 5 teams in the Doubles - Bedwell & Norton, and they lived up to their billing, not dropping a game throughout the event to take the title (and the lead in the new Doubles Series rankings for 2024.) They were pushed by the eventual runners up Manson & Hindmarch, whose knowledge of each other's game and tactics makes them a very experienced and crafty team. We had a really competitive Open draw again this year, with a good mixture of local and travelling players involved. Mike Harris had an entertaining game with Newland's Fraser McCann in his box, scraping past 13/11, 11/9, and Matt Bedwell also was pushed hard by his local team mate Mark Ford, dropping a game on the way to a 2/1 win against the experienced campaigner. In the end it meant a British Nationals Final rematch between the two player coaches, and despite Bedwell rocketing off to a 5/0 lead in the 1st game, Harris was able to slowly reel him back in to take a high quality 2/0 win in 40 minutes of open and varied play. 

A really great day of games at a top venue and fun group of players. Thanks to Keith Gristwood for promoting the event around his RASTA (Racketball Around Scotland) guys and getting them involved. Fingers crossed we can keep getting more of our UK Racketball and RASTA players iplaying in each other's events! Thank you also to Newlands and Matt Bedwell for hosting us so well and making us so welcome. We can't wait for next year!

You can find the full draws and results below on Sporty HQ. We also kept the camera rolling through the day so have loads of pictures and videos of the action for you to check out on our UK Racketball Facebook page. Finally, one of our Scottish Racketball compatriots Mike Sutherland did a fantastic job in doing a two camera filming job on the Open Final between Matt Bedwell & Mike Harris, including adding a scoreboard to the footage. Check it out below on Youtube to see some top level Racketball action in a quality 40 minute best of 3 game battle!

SPORTY HQ: SCOTTISH OPEN 2024

FACEBOOK: ALBUM

YOUTUBE OPEN FINAL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVRvIJO6xyY
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