The IOMSRA Summer Junior Grading Squash tournament was played at NSC on Sun 18 June. There was an excellent entry including some children from the Manx Youth Games entering a Grading tournament for the first time.
There were 10 entries in Group 6 so the players were divided into 2 sub-groups of 5 with play-offs between the groups at the end. Group 6a was won by Rania Gomaa who won all her matches although she only narrowly defeated Saul Parry 11-9 and Laura Dickinson 11-10. Dickinson beat Parry 11-6 to finish second. In Group 6b, Oliver Wait also won all his matches to finish top. It was extremely close for second between Isobel Joubert and Amaline Batty. Batty beat Joubert 11-9 but thanks to a better result against Wait, Joubert came second.
In the play-offs, Parry beat Batty 15-9 to finish 5th. Joubert beat Dickinson 15-6 to claim 3rd and in an excellent final Wait beat Gomaa 15-11 to finish 1st. Both players will be promoted to group 5 for the next tournament.
Group 5 was played on the same basis as Group 6. Courtney Gilardoni dominated Group 5a winning all her matches. It was a real battle for second though between Mark Arrowsmith, George Dickinson and Leena Anwar. Anwar beat Dickinson 15-9 but lost to Arrowsmith by the same score. Dickinson beat Arrowsmith 15-7 the latter had a better result against Gilardoni to finish level on points with Dickinson, who claimed second because he had beaten Arrowsmith. Anwar was only 2 points further back in 4th.
Group 5b was a mirror image of 5a with Lewis Bridson in commanding form winning all his matches. Walid Anwar finished 2nd with Katherine Picken third. The play-offs in this Group were best of three matches. Arrowsmith beat Picken 2-0 to claim 5th. Dickinson narrowly overcame Walid Anwar for 3rd. In the final Bridson beat Gilardoni 2-0 and both players will be promoted to group 4 for the next tournament.
In Group 4 Macklin Wilson won all his games, including a marathon against Scott Jones who finished second. Calum Baker beat Jack Taylor to finish 3rd.
Group 3 was dominated by Sam Wilson who won all his matches. However, he was made to work extremely hard by Dewald Joubert before winning 15-14 with both players displaying extremely good sportsmanship in a thoroughly competitive match. Joubert finished in 2nd despite losing 15-13 to Ben Peach, who narrowly missed out on 3rd to Peter Baker after another 15-14 classic - 3 of Baker’s games went to this score!
Group 2 was a very close run affair. Oscar Hill eventually won by 1 point from Sidney Batty and Peter Naylor. Hill beat Batty 2-0 and Naylor 2-1 but lost to Rachel Pooley 2-1. Batty narrowly defeated Naylor 2-1 to finish second.
Finally, 3 players battled out Group 1, Patrick Fitzpatrick beat both Juan and Duncan Churcher 3-0 to win despite a painful blow on the mouth at one point. Patrick has now reached his maximum of 8 trophy wins and graduates from the Grading "college” - congratulations to Patrick! Juan beat his brother 3-1 to claim second.
These popular junior Grading tournaments are currently without a sponsor -so if any parents know of any companies wanting to support junior Manx sport, please let Dave Griffiths, Junior Development Officer (470957) know.
ENDS
Monday 27th, June 2011 09:56pm.
