Sydenham Tennis Club (Squash & Tennis)
Lawrie Park Road • Sydenham, London • SE26 6ET
Tel: 020 8778 4217
The 2016 Racketball Tournament, which reached its climax yesterday afternoon, started with a league stage conducted over a period of about ten weeks during which all fifteen of the players who entered were due to play each other. The league stage served to identify the top eight players and their seedings for the final “knock out” stage, all three rounds of which were played yesterday. The seedings proved astonishingly accurate. None of the top four seeds were knocked out in the quarter finals. The top two seeds won the semi-finals. The grand final was won by the top seed and the second final, for the bronze trophy, was won by the third seed. But the impression this may give that the knock out stage was boringly predictable is totally misleading. Many of the matches, and particularly the grand final, were thrillingly close and enthralling to watch. Ian Moody, the top seed, made his way to the final by way by way of a fairly comfortable 2 – 0 win over Pete Edwards, seeded eight, in the quarter finals and a very close 2 – I win over Paul Lindsay seeded four in the semi-finals. John Rowe, the second seed, eased his way through the quarter final with a 2 – 0 win over David Stacey, seeded seven, and then had a very tough 2 - O win over Harry Cole in the semi-finals. The grand final was well worthy of its billing. The same two players had contested the top final last year and at first it seemed as though the course of the match would also be the same. Last year, Ian won the first game, but then John found his form and, despite valiant defence by Ian, ran away with the rest of the match. This year Ian again won the first game and, when John won the second, it looked as though history was going to repeat itself, particularly because, just like last year, John began to exploit his superior speed by dominating the front position on the court. But maybe Ian had spent the year thinking how to combat this tactic or maybe he was on fractionally better form, because he found a way to nullify John’s positional advantage by picking up John's brilliant drop shots to the right hand corner, which last year had proved so deadly, so as to force the game back to long attritional exchanges down the back hand wall at which he excelled. In the end Ian ran out a 2 -1 winner (17 – 15; 11-15; 15-9). Both of the players in the bronze final had had very tough losing games in the semi-finals. In the quarter finals, Harry Cole's win over Bradley Sawyer, seeded 6 and by a wide margin the youngest player in the tournament, was hard enough but it was certainly easier than Paul Linday's win over Jon Miles, seeded 5, who seemed set to cause an upset when he powered to a 6 – 15 win the first game. Paul, however, recovered to win the second game 15 – 10 and then the final game by the slimmest of margins 17 – 15. Paul’s hard course to the final may have left him with too little in the tank to overcome an on form Harry. Harry won a close first game 15 – 12 before running away with the next game 15 – 3. David Roberts
21/03/2016
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