The final night.  Thank you to everyone who has played this year, and especially to Trevor Morgan who organised the competition.

The Weald Squash Tournament came to its end with Mark Pearson facing two new foes to retain his titles.  The night started well for him in the Veterans as he clinically placed the ball in the far reaches of the court, making Julian Drage work hard for points and forcing him into errors.  Despite Julian’s best efforts to place the balls deeper and gaining a number of points in the third it was not enough to stop Mark’s remorseless progress to a 3-0 win.

Starting the challenge for the Men’s title immediately after the Vets, Mark won a quick game off Adam Baines-Jump, catching him on the hop 9-1 before Adam retaliated with an impressive 9-0 win in the second.  From then on it was anyone’s match as the solid tactical game from Mark played the brilliance of Adam’s cross court volley nicks.  Eventually it proved to be the day for the younger legs as Mark tired, earning Adam his first win of the Weald title.

In the Ladies, Sarah Naish retained the trophy, beating Gemma Shardlow 3-0 after overcoming Gemma’s precise backhand volley drops in a hard but enjoyable game.  Continuing his run of tremendous form in this tournament, Dave Jump faced Conrad Thompson in the ‘B’ in a hard hitting and hard running final.  Despite going to a tie-break in the second, Dave dominated the play with good length drives and drops making Conrad do all the work chasing down the ball, eventually winning in three.   

Stephen Chinn retained his ‘C’ title, playing attacking squash to take the first game from Jim Gowans.  With his legendary retrieving Jim fought back to take the second, but lost the third and seemed to be out of the fourth at 0-8 down before making a comeback to 8-7 as Stephen failed to convert four match balls.  However, Stephen concentrated and decisively put away the final shots to take the match.  Earning his place in the ‘D’ final after a tough semi, Gary Sheail beat Allan Liles in three with contrasting games of hard drives and drop-shots.

The racketball tournament was held for the first year and was won by Jo Mack whose experience outplayed Pete Berry who tried the sport for the first time this month.  The stamina of the squash players seem to out-run the more experienced racketball players in the tournament, but there were some fiercely contested games along the way.