Over 45's Champion: Martin Geear
Ladies Champion: Rachel Calver
Mens Champion: James Wright
I would like to thank everyone who entered the county closed. Across the week there have been some great matches and a few upsets. Here is a comprehensive round up of the events and match reports
Over 45’s
Starting in the over 45’s in round 1 Nick Clark showed his dominance in the over 45’s at Leicester Squash in beating Dave Jones in round 1. Also in round 1 Mike Turney beat Steve Ball in a brutal encounter in which Steve had nothing left in the 5th and Mike went through him 11-0, though this match took its toll, with both players unable to play the rest of the competition. Finally, in round one Ken White just getting past the spritely Hans Bilson by three games to two.
The quarter finals and Semi’s also proved a close affair with Mark Newitt pushing Dave Wood all the way to a tie breaker in the last. In a match that took well over an hour. Mark Newitt then went on to win the plate event beating Hans Bilson and Dave Jones 3-1 in each though with a 16-14 win in the 4th against Dave Jones this could have gone both ways.
Next Dave Wood played Dave Shaw in the semis. This was expected to be tight and once again it was all the first four games going to the wire before Dave Wood shocked the seedings and beat the champ of the last 2 years Dave Shaw in Five.
The final was unfortunately one step too far for Dave Wood after two five setters in two days. He was unable to play to the level in had the rest of week. That added to playing an opponent that didn’t make any errors meant that Martin Geear showed why he was number one seed and was too strong for Dave winning the match 3-0.
Well played and well done Martin Geear
Ladies
The Ladies event unfortunately had last minute withdrawals though still the ladies put on a cracking final in which Rachel Calver regained her county trophy 3-1 against Jo Burnett. Rachel started off to steady for Jo and though Jo pulled one back after losing the 3rd she had too much to do.
Great match and well played Rachel
Mens
The men’s event had players ranging from 14 to 45 that entered the event, which was great to see. This again had so many tight matches Luke Parker beating Andy Maynard by a tie breaker in the 5th set the ball rolling next Andy Beel and George Parker both upset the seedings beating Rob Britton 3-1 and Mark Thomas 3-0 respectively.
The Surprise of the quarter final was Martin Geear beating his Market Harborough team mate and number 4 seed Steve Ward 3-1 The rest of the competition went with the seedings until the semi-final despite the best efforts of Graham Bagley losing to Josh Taylor 3-0 with all games going to a tie break.
In the plate event Andy Maynard showed again that he loves 3-2 as he went on to beat Hallam Robson in 5 before losing to Rob Vivian by the same score in the plate semi-final. In the other half of the plate Graham Bagley and Rob Britton put on an entertaining match with Rob’s movement too much for Graham’s shot making. This lead to the battle of Leicester Squash in the plate final with Rob Vivian rolling back the years to turn over Rob Britton in the final by three games to one.
In the main Draw the semi-finals again went with the seedings though Martin Geear did put on one heck of a performance in taking a game off number 1 seed Darren Lewis especially after he had just played his Over 45 semi-final earlier on in the evening. In the other semi-final James Wright was too strong for the mobile James Hodson.
Next came the final we were hoping for Darren Lewis looking for his 8th county title and James Wright looking for his 2nd in this his 6th county final. The trend of recent years continued with James Wright running out an 11-6 win in the first game. Then the crucial 2nd which went all the way to a tie breaker having saved 2 games balls Darren won the game 13-11.
Now in recent years Darren had then gone to win the match in 4. In front of a full crowd the London road members now watching more in hope than expectation that James could come back again. Though this isn’t the same player from the last couple of years and in a big push James went 2-1 a head. The 4th game started off tight though with Darren pulling away and James conserving his energy went for shots that didn’t come off and the match was level 2-2. The fifth was close with both players looking tired. This game was tight all the way before James pulled away 10-7 for his first match ball. Darren rallied to pull the score to 10-10. James edged ahead again for his 4th match ball at 11-10, Darren saved one more, then after another massive rally James pulled ahead again for his 5th match ball at 12-11. This time Darren couldn’t come back.
Match title to James Wright 13-11 and boy did he deserve it well played James