Cambs Squash

A VIEW FROM THE (NATIONAL)BALCONY

With the Senior Nationals just completed it was the turn of the top Juniors in the u19 and u15 to compete at the National Squash centre in Manchester from 19-22 Feb.

As seems to be a regular occurrence these days a relatively large party from the Cambs leagues decamped to Manchester for several days.

These championships seem to get tougher every year and a high ranking is necessary just to be accepted into the qualifiers and after 2 tough matches potentially – you run into a fresh seeded player. The lot of the qualifier is not an easy one!!!.

Declan Osborn got a fairly tough draw in the u19 and went down in 5 to Oliver Rawlins. Rob Dadds got an even tougher one against Josh Harris a former top 5 u17 player and could make little impact despite playing well.

Daniel McGinn drew his bogey player, Ross Brown, from Essex and just about made it home in 5 nervous sets to move into the main draw.

Harry Taylor also drew a potential toughy in the u15 against the highly rated George Parker but after recovering from 3-9 in the first set Harry also made it through to 1st round.

On day 2 and into the main competition we saw Sammy Chambers get through against an in-form Charlie Wyatt. Sam though seemed a little out of touch following recent niggling injuries but we judge Sam by the highest standards and maybe this is a little unfair

Daniel had a really difficult game against the seeded and very tricky Ted Jeal.
Ted will always look for the unorthodox and flamboyant –sometimes to his own detriment. And so it proved as Dan pulled off a famous 4-set win.

Elsje Van Es made the main draw of the girls u19 but had the classy 5th seed Carrie Ramsey and went down in 3 – but not outclassed and no disgrace.

Harry up next against Alex Noakes, ranked16 nationally. Harry played a blinder – very sensible ; no mistakes and conceded only 4 points and drew encouraging remarks from England Coaches and Referees alike

So at the end of day 2 we still had 3 players in the mix.

On day 3 Sammy went down in 5 sets in just over the hour to long time rival Charles Sharples and Dan went down in 3 to Hywel Robinson ; who would go on to reach the final.
Harry had the Welsh 5/8 seed Alex Pendleton and got through after Pendelton injured himself when trailing 1-2 in sets. Harry’s reward was a run in with no1 seed Olly Holland –end of the line for Harry but he did get a great write up in the SquashSite.

So in summary-
Sam disappointed to finish 11th ( probably 60-70 top u19’s would like to be so disappointed) but Sam will be back with a vengeance.

Daniel performed completely off his own impressive radar and finished 14th –way above his ranking.

Elsje finished 19th ;which is also above her ranking and Harry finished 8th ; which from a current national ranking of 48 is some effort.

Well done guys – all of you – great to see.

Bob Maison