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
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