Sunday, September 27th witnessed the annual renewal of the Junior County Closed Championships held at Abingdon Squash and Racketball club. Entry numbers were down on previous years but the quality was very evident.
In the opening tie of the BU17/BU19 group, Jack Cairns was pitted against Jack Gates with the former taking the win 2-0. Similar scorelines in Jack’s second match against Aiden Li and his third versus Joe Yeardsley meant he had secured his place in the Final later in the afternoon.
Meeting him there would be Toby Rider who had also despatched Aiden, the other Jack and Joe Yeardsley all by scores of two games to nil.
By way of consolation, Joe defeated the luckless Li to set up a meeting with Jack Gates for 3rd/4th place but it was the latter who took ‘bronze’ with a 2-1 victory.
The Final itself was the highlight of the day with both lads looking great future prospects. Age and experience probably accounted for Cairns’s narrow victory but Rider should feel very satisfied with his exploits.
Starting proceedings in the Boys Under 15 section, Toby Lloyd defeated Tomo Matsuoka 3-0 whilst on the adjacent court William Burgess got the better of Chengqi Zhang also 3 zip.
The Number One Seed, Ying Yat Cheung justified his exalted position in seeing off Burgess with Toby Lloyd following up his earlier win by overcoming Duncan Ashby.
5th and 6th spots in this category were decided when Zhang gained a tough win over Matsuoka (3-1) with Duncan Ashby getting a spot on the podium at the expense of Burgess (3-1).
The Final proved a close encounter but Cheung was too strong for the lower ranked Lloyd so ‘took home the bacon’.
In the BU11/BU13 group Freddie Gore began his campaign with a tight 3-2 defeat of Hongyi Chen. Straight after this encounter, Bode Horrocks took on Ibrahim Islam prevailing 3-0.
Later, Freddie consolidated his earlier success with another tough fight this time getting past Horrocks, 3-1. Meanwhile, Chen avenged his earlier setback in seeing off Islam 3-1. The championship in this age group was settled when Gore beat Islam to land the silverware. Hongyi took the runner’s up berth after overwhelming Horrocks 3-0.
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- BU11 Winner – Ibrahim Islam
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- BU19 Winner – Jack Cairns
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- BU13 Runner Up – Hongyi Chen
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- BU13 Winner – Freddie Gore
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- BU15 Runner Up – Toby Llyod
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- BU17 Runner Up – Jack Gates
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- BU15 Winner – Ying Yat Cheung
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- BU17 Winner – Toby Rider
