Cambs Squash

This weekend saw the restaging of the Cambs Senior Gran prix event where our top players are invited to play a round-robin event, which we hope will help our County Captains with their selections for the season’s upcoming county matches.

In the “Men’s” event we had a number of notable absentees through injury and unavailability. However with the addition of our top lady player Carrie Hastings into their draw there was a real buzz about the 2-group format.
The ladies turn out of 12 players was excellent enabling us to play a tournament format with the girls getting 4 matches in most cases.

The event, superbly organised (as always) by Rebecca Moore saw Jo Scrivens travelling in from Norwich to play and Neil Rossin and Matt Fielding coming in from Nottingham and Heaton respectively – thanks for making the effort guys.

In Saturdays men’s matches there were some great games and my apologies go to those whose games I missed. However Dan Soar and Neil Rossin got proceedings of to a great start with Neil coming back to win in 5.

Newly crowned u19 champion Dan McGinn got off to a good start with 4 tough 4-setter with Vinod whilst Matt Fielding got the toughie having to go up against Carrie Hastings but after a few hard rallies Matt clearly dispensed with all “I’m playing a girl” thoughts and got through in 3 sets.

James Powley having just recovered from food poisoning must have loved the prospect of a hard run out with Rob Dadds and after a first set blitzing he was able to use all his experience to come through in 4 – but at what cost we were to discover later.

In the afternoon games Dan McGinn came through against Matt and Neil looked comfortable against Rob. The Soar- Powley contest was real nail-biter with Dan coming through against a clearly weary James.

The Carrie- Vinod clash was brilliant and a real credit to both players. Not sure who was most surprised by Carrie’s play, Vinod (I thought she’s bound to get tired in a minute!) or Carrie herself – but after a great 5-setter played to a full balcony it was Vinod who came through.

The ladies draw though up some interesting clashes with HC team mates Elsje Van Es and Nayera El Refee playing each other for the umpteenth time and former Comberton team mates Jo Scrivens and Julia Dolman clashing in the first round – Elsje and Julia coming through.

Nicky Hastings and Rebecca Moore also faced up for the “not sure I want to win this one cos I’ll have to play at 1 in the 050’s match” clash.
Maybe Carrie’s –“Come on Mum” calls were the deciding factor as Nicky came through that one.

Top seed Ann Babtie was moving through without being troubled whilst former Uni team-mate Mharie Dougal was using up all the court time with a 4set win over Rebecca and then marathon 5-setters against Faye Kowalewsky and then Julia Dolman.
With so many tough matches in 2 days there were some tired bodies for the Sunday morning.

Dan McGinn came through in 4 against Carrie; Whilst Daddsy got over Saturday’s disappointments by despatching Dan Soar in 4. Neil got a let off as James decided to pull out and recover for the mid-week league match.

With the Ladies playing off for the minor places it was Ann and Mharie who contested a very competitive final, with Ann coming through in 4.

So for the last match up in the men’s competition with Dan McGinn taking on Neil Rossin. What a final! Dan extending the rallies and using his improved touch at the front and Rossin using all his experience to confine the younger player into difficult positions.

At 2-0 McGinn it looked all up for Rossin, but Neil’s a fighter and from somewhere he found new energies and pulled it back to 2-2.
However, after a few really tight rallies in the 5th it was Daniel who pulled away to take the rather nice trophy.

So a great competition to get the season rolling; thanks to the players; markers and of course Becs for organising (and marking and playing and for some adhoc catering)

Well done Ann and Daniel!

And finally – Regular readers of these columns will know that at Cambs SRA we are always on the look out for top Junior Talent.

So it is with great pleasure we show you this picture of a potential champion of the future.

Emma Powley has just turned 1 and in, possibly her first interview, she was able to tell us about the work she is doing to improve her racket skills – “Playing with a “big-girls racket” is really hard” she says” and apparently “Now I’ve got this toddling thing sorted Daddy says we can move on to ghosting”

We will be watching Emma’s progress as she cuts a swathe through the under-2 rankings.

Bob Maison