Henley Squash Club
Invesco




Henley Leisure Centre, Gillotts Lane, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon, RG9 1PA
28/09/13

2013 Club Championship Report

Having not staged the club championship for 5 years, Henley Squash Club experimented with a new format for the 2013 tournament. All 76 members were entered into the competition, with a qualifying event to determine the 8 players to meet the seeds in the main draw. Jeremy Willis, Dan Andrews, Paul Ireland, Richie Hopkins, Alan Smallman, Charlie Jackson, Charlie Homewood and Fiona Dixon all progressed to the main draw. However, having qualified, only Paul Ireland managed to record a win in the main event, beating Henley junior James Little 3/1 in round 1. Having said that, Charlie Homewood narrowly lost his first match 3/2 in a very close encounter with Tim Budden. In the next round, Ireland produced another gutsy performance against 9/16 seed James Knight, narrowly losing 3/1 to end his good run. All the seeds continued their progression to the quarter finals as expected, although number 1 seed Rick Weatherall had to pull out due to work commitments. Returning from a 3 year contract in South Africa, Matt Marshall replaced Weatherall and became the number 1 seed, taking his place in the quarter final line up. The top 4 seeds, Matt Marshall, Simon Street, Harry Carr and Stefan Stanton then all progressed comfortably to the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, the plate competition (for all first round losers), had also progressed to the semi-final stage, with Chris Parker beating Sean Borrett 3/0 and Neal Thomas surprising the crowd by beating James Little 3/1. Unfortunately, in the plate final, Neal tore his hamstring in the first point and had to retire, awarding a 3/0 victory to Chris Parker.

In the semi-finals of the main event, Matt Marshall beat a loose Stefan Stanton 3/0 fairly comfortably, although the other line up was a very tight affair. After an hour of high tempo squash, Simon Street and Harry Carr were locked at 2 games all, when the centre had to shut early due to staff issues. On the rescheduled match Street failed to deliver and Carr progressed 3/0 to meet Marshall in the final. The final was an interesting matchup – Carr with all his youthful enthusiasm, bounding all over the court, determined to retrieve every shot, versus the talented and more experienced Marshall. Despite all Carr’s effort, the result was a fairly comfortable 3/0 for Marshall, who has a knack of delivering quality shots from the toughest positions, whilst rarely making a mistake.

The tournament was deemed a success and the approach encouraged greater member participation, with 53 matches being played in total. However, the 2014 tournament will focus upon eliminating the number of walk-overs awarded by introducing a number of new initiatives. Member feedback was very positive, with the only remaining dilemma being the possible result in a Marshall versus Weatherall final. To answer this question a one off ‘shoot out’ will be held towards the end of the year to determine Henley’s number one player. This match is planned to be held on the same weekend as Henley’s ‘handicapped’ tournament and it is hoped both events will be widely supported.

The full Draws can be seen here.

 

Pictures: Matt and Harry are congratulated by tournament organiser Simon Street.