Club Championship 2006 - Commentaries

2006 Club
Championship
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Saturday 18th November - Finals Night

Junior Handicap Finals
We started off tonight with the finals of the Junior Handicap Tournament.  This was between Matt Powell (-8) and Thomas Heneghan (+8).  This looked on paper to be an easy victory to Matt with his extra power, speed and touch.  However Thomas surprised everyone (especially Matt) with the quality of his squash.  Matt was having to hit several winners in a row in some points, and this added pressure eventually caused him to make a few mistakes.  At 10/13, Matt looked like he was on track to pull it back, but then he fluffed a shot, and Thomas hit a winner to give Thomas the first game 15/11.  The next game started really well for Thomas as Matt fluffed a return of server and seemed ill at ease.  In fact Thomas won three out of the first four points.  At 10/-7 in front the odds were decidedly in Thomas's favour.  However Matt dug in, abandoned all risky shots and just played the ball at pace to the back of the court.  Thomas dug out many of these, but not enough.  Matt took the second game 15/12.  Matt kept the same strategy for the next two games and this gave him the match.  Both players played well, and this was a worthy final.  The score was 11/15 15/12 15/9 15/11.

Men's Plate Finals
Next Jonathon and I battled it out in the plate final.  Our previous encounters have always produced some close matches and this was no exception.  Jonathon was sticking to his strategy of moving me around with good crosscourts.  I was trying (but not always succeeding) in keeping the pace up to keep Jonathon from hitting easy winners.  As expected, it went to five and Jonathon's fitness won through.  The score was 9/5 5/9 6/9 9/5 9/4.

Ladies' Finals
The entry for the ladies' tournament was very disappointing this year.  For various reasons, none of the regular team members could enter, so in the end just two ladies entered and were obviously straight through to the finals.  This was the battle of the Heneghans with Frances taking on her daughter Clare.  This was one of those matches where experience (and determination) proved superior to youth.  Frances kept Clare under pressure the whole time, and although Clare frequently worked herself into good positions, she relied too much on her drop shot which never quite found the nick.  In the end Frances won the match with a score of 9/2 9/3 9/4.

Men's Finals
And finally, ...the men's finals.  We were expecting some entertainment from this, as both Paul Sewell (1) and Brett Green (2) are in good form at the moment.  Having seen the way Paul despatched Martyn Whiting in the semifinals only dropping two points in the process, I didn't see how Brett would be able to contain him.  Having said that, Brett also made short work of Andy Hicks in his quarter final in a less extravagant, but equally effective manner.

I didn't see the first game, but from the score sheet, I can see that Paul shot into a 4/0 lead - with hindsight, this four point advantage might well have cost Brett the match!  Judging by the exhibition squash I saw in the next games, Paul was hitting the ball unbelievably hard, but low enough so that they frequently died at the back.  Brett used the pace of these balls, opened the face of his racket and just hit good tight lengths to the back of the court.  Brett actually scored more points than Paul in the second half of the first game, but he could never get back that four point deficit.  Paul took the first game 9/6.

Everything changed in the second game.  Brett was a lot more focused, and played some good pressure squash.  He went for his drops (straight, none of those ridiculous cross courts he used to try against Glen all those years ago), retrieved magnificently, volleyed when he could and made virtually no mistakes.  Paul on the other hand wasn't scoring as many points as he would have liked and kept going for winners that didn't win!  Volley crosscourt kills that leapt out of the nick, straight volley drop returns of serve that tinned, etc.  Brett kept his head and didn't change his strategy and produced a very convincing 9/3 win in that game.  One game all - waves of excitement rippled through the crowd (all 12 of us!).

The third game brought in even more surprises.  After a couple of rallies (both of which Paul won), Brett's legs went.  He gave up completely on a couple of poor drops from Paul, and would only move from side to side, not front to back.  I think the  effort he had put into the second game was taking its toll.  Paul shot into a 5/1 lead, and then the next surprise happened.  Paul stopped scoring points, and in fact started playing Brett back into the game with some errors and some overhit lengths that got Brett moving again.  It was clear that Paul was as tired as Brett!  Brett was now doing most of the scoring and Paul was making frequent errors.  Brett pulled the game back to 5/5 and then went through to game ball at 8/7, but Paul seemed unaware of the danger he was in and played some exceptionally good relaxed squash to win the next four rallies and take the game 10/8.  This was an interesting game, as both players had to go through their own personal walls to get through it.  Paul was now 2-1 up.

In the fourth game, neither player showed the signs of fatigue he had shown in the third game.  First Brett got a couple of points ahead, then Paul scored five points in a single hand.  Paul was still driving the ball at tremendous pace; Brett was getting to them all and straightening them, forcing the odd boast from Paul, doing a nice tight dropshot off that forcing Paul to run the diagonal.  However Paul still seemed to have a lot of time on the ball and could still hit really powerful low winners of Brett's looser shots.  Brett was still in with a chance at 5/6, but then (once again) Paul tightened up his game, upped the pace and won the next three points to take the game and match.

This was the best final I have seen down here (I say that every year!), with both players giving 110%.  The contrasting styles made it really good to watch, and the game was played in true sporting spirit (as you would expect from Paul and Brett).  The final score was 9/6 3/9 10/8 9/5.

Richard's Speech
Blink and you missed it!  Who would have guessed?  Actually we were all quite pleased to get on with the business of eating as many flapjacks, sausage rolls, pringles, etc. as we could and go through some post mortems of some of the matches.

Paul's Rant
I always have a bit of a rant on these occasions, so as I wouldn't like to disappoint you, here goes:

Why was the entry so poor this year?  At first I assumed it was the team players that were responsible, but in fact, considering we only have two teams, we did quite well to get eight seeds from them.  So what's happened to the support for this event?  Apart from losing the third team, we also seem to have lost a lot of third-team standard players who used to enter these events in years gone by.  People like the Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon gangs and the vets (Mike Francis, Jimmy, Pete Scully, Tony Whitehouse, Steve Porter, Neil Healey, Ian Smith, Wayne) didn't enter this year.  A few would have entered except for a conflicting engagement, but I reckon a lot of them aren't that interested anymore.

I don't know what happened the ladies.  There was plenty of notice about this tournament - it went out in an email to all members on the 7th September.  It was also marked out on the sheets, three weeks before the tournament.

What should we do in the future?  A quick poll in the bar showed that most players were in favour of nominating this tournament to be the  replacement for the missing one from the 2005/2006 season, so we should have another one at the end of the 2006/2007 season - probably in March/April 2007.  In future, we might well hold this tournament in December.

Any thoughts?

Paul

Friday 17th November

Paul Sewell (1) and Martyn Whiting (4) played first in their semi final game.  Paul was in awesome form starting in the knockup (the first ball only lasted two minutes!), and in the first game he played some superb hard-hitting yet controlled squash.  Martyn was harried from corner to corner, and on the (very) few occasions he was given a chance, was so out of his rhythm that he fluffed them.  He only served once in the first game and got no points.  In the second game Martyn began to acclimatise to the pace, and got his first point off a really low attacking drop shot that Paul couldn't quite reach. He actually won seven rallies in that game to Paul's 15, but with English scoring, that only gave him a single point!  The third game was similar, with the exception that Paul eased off towards the end allowing Martyn to win several rallies, but only one point.  Martyn didn't play badly, particularly in the second and third games, but Paul's power, accuracy, touch and retrieving were all coming together to make a perfect squash machine.  Paul won 9/0 9/1 9/1.

Brett Green (2) and Andy Hicks (6) played next.  Brett, despite suffering from a pulled hamstring was also in awesome form tonight.  Andy never got to serve in the first game!  In the second game, Andy still hadn't settled down and won two rallies but no points.  It wasn't until he was 5/0 down in the third game that Andy started to put Brett under some pressure.  Brett, not feeling under pressure loosened up his game a little and Andy took full advantage with some really tight shots and good boasts.  He started to put a few runs of points together, but it was impossible situation to recover from, but at least he got four points to prevent a 27/0 defeat!.  Brett won 9/0 9/0 9/4.

Jonathon Bomford and Richard Avery had a humdinger of a match.  I predicted it would be close with a possible win for Jonathon if it went to five, and that was the outcome!  Richard played exceptionally well in most of the games and often built up some really useful leads, but too often, he tired, and let Jonathon back in the game.  Although Richard won pore points, Jonathon won the match with 9/7 6/9 2/9 9/6 10/8.

Last of all, I (Paul Heneghan) played Matt Powell.  Matt is improving every year, and as he got three points off me last year, was looking to put me under real pressure.  In fact, in the first game he shot into a 3/0 lead, and it looked as if it might be his year, but then I started getting some length and some points to take me to a 9/3 first game.  In the second game, once again it was neck and neck up to about 3/3 and then Matt made a couple of mistakes to let me take control.  The third game was similar.  Matt has now reached the stage where his shots and retrieving are as good as mine - now he needs to work on shot selection (NO reverse angles) and volleys.  It was a good match - score 9/3 9/3 9/2 to me.

Richard is running a junior handicap tournament in the morning.  The final for that will be held in the evening just before the other finals.

Please bring some nibbles!

Thursday 16th November

Richard Avery and Pete Bolshaw played the last remaining quarter final game tonight in the plate.  Richard won 9/3 9/5 9/2.

Wednesday 15th November

Paul Sewell (1) had his first game of the tournament tonight against Granthan Speake (8).  I don't think the outcome was ever in question, but Paul made a game of it and the result was some very entertaining squash.  Paul won 9/0 9/2 9/2.

Andy Hicks had a 3-0 win over Pete Bolshaw.  Pete had several chances and converted them into points, but Andy managed to consistently put away any loose balls.

Tuesday 14th November

Martyn Whiting (4) played Richard Chinn (5) tonight.  As expected, it was a close match (in parts) with Richard coming out with all guns blazing to take the first game 9/7.  I'm not sure what happened next, but a few minutes later, he was 2-1 games down.  In the fourth game, both players were playing well, but a pattern began to develop - Martyn would drop, Richard would come steaming in, play a nice little trickle boast over to the other front corner (well out of reach), and then Martyn would extend his right arm by about two feet and either drop or drive the ball, leaving Richard stranded muttering things about '... like playing a *&^%$£"! JCB'.  Martyn took that game 10/8 and with it the match.

Sunday 12th November

Brett (1) and Ben (7) played today.  Brett won 9/3 9/4 9/6.

There are a few alterations to the schedule.  Keep an eye on the website for the latest changes.

Saturday 11th November

I've decided to leave the draw as it is rather than mess up the schedule trying to replace the #3 slot.

Martyn (4) and Matt played at the ungodly hour of 09:45 this morning.  Martyn won 9/0 9/5 9/2.  Martyn is now through to meet the mighty Chinn in the QF.  I play Matt in the SF of the plate.

Friday 10th November

We got off to a good start with three good matches tonight.

First of all I played Granthan (8).  As usual, this went to five.  In the fifth game, I got to match ball first, but couldn't convert it.  When Granthan levelled it at eight all, I called "Set One", won back the serve, fluffed the next rally and then hit the return of serve out of court.  Match to Granthan 9/2 1/9 7/9 9/3 9/8.

Special thanks go to Clare Heneghan for the excellent job she made of marking the match - very professional!

Richard Avery played really well against Andy Hicks (6) and took control of the first game with some cleanly-hit winners.  At 5/2 he seemed unstoppable, but then he eased up a bit and let Andy through.  Richard redeemed himself in the second game and kept the pressure up throughout to make it one all.  Andy seemed content to wait for Richard to tire, and obligingly, at 5/5 in the third, Richard did, allowing Andy to take the third 9/5.  In the fourth, Richard wasn't really interested in prolonged retrieving any more, and although Andy hit it back to him quite a few times, Andy was nearly always in control and took the game and match.  The score was 9/5 3/9 9/5 9/3.

Jonathon Bomford got off to a slow start against Ben (7), and it took him a couple of games before he realised that he had to hit three or four winners in a row in order win the rally.  In the third game however, his deep cross courts to Ben's backhand began to take effect, and he hurled himself around the court to get to Ben's boasted returns.  Jonathon took that game 9/4.  The fourth game was similar, but Jonathon's cross courts weren't nicking, and Ben had realised the danger he was in and started hitting some good winners, so Ben went through 3-1.  The score was 9/2 9/1 4/9 9/6.

Matt and Martyn are playing at 09:45 tomorrow

Kiffy has pulled out of the tournament because of an injury.  The only problem is, that we are now lacking a #3 seed.  I might have to move Chinny into that slot, but it's going to mess up the draw, because Chinny can't play until Tuesday.

Thursday 9th November

Just done the draw.  Please contact me if you have a problem with any of the scheduled times.

©Copyright 2006 by Paul Heneghan

Last modified: 19 November 2006 01:40