Connacht Junior Open 2015 Some great performances and a super emphatic win in the boys U13's from Denis !!
Some great performances and a super emphatic win in the boys U13's from Denis !!
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Brenda, after her summer break in China and not a lot of training, managed to comfortably reach the final of the girls U13 event, meeting her rival from last year, Hannah Mcgugan.
The final went to 5 with Brenda losing the fifth 11-8
Brenda was happy with her performance, hopefully by the time the Ulster Open comes around in October she will have got enough training in to shape a different outcome.
Sasha unfortunately lost her first round match, after winning the first game she lost the next 3. General opinion is that she could have done better here but her opponent was tricky and she was a little more mobile. Something for Sasha to work on is speed and fitness for her next tournament as she has all the racquet skills required at this level to compete with the top tier. She finished strong winning the plate but top 8 finishes MUST be her priority going forward.
Scott played some solid squash to beat Luke Logan, the number 1 seed from Sutton, in the semi-final. Scott was patient and positive, wearing Luke down in the physical stakes and then taking full advantage working his short game to apply pressure and get a convincing win for a place in the final. Unfortunately the effort and concentration in the semi final seemed to sap Scott's resolve to make it two in a row against Conor Moran. Scott was clearly frustrated with his performance and had lost his structure allowing Conor to win the last couple of points easily. Scott and Conor have just moved up into the U17 category so both will be happy to improve their rankings so early in the campaign.
Ryan was seeded 4 and finished 5, he had to fight hard in his last match and dug in deep wearing down David Ryan from Sutton in 5. Suggestions for Ryan would include building on his very solid base game and evolve his short game. But a strong finish to stay ahead of the 5-8 seeds.
Jude moving up an age category, was seeded 8, he faced one of the Sutton players Dylan O Donovan – after winning the first Dylan got his driving game working and put plenty of pressure on Jude. There was little in this game as Jude was playing the better squash, unfortunately Dylan got the better of him on this occasion. He won his next round, lost then to a handy local player from Galway and ended up playing a club challenge against Matthew, where Matthew won the bragging rights.
Matthew was finding it hard to find his game at this event and it was clear he was rusty, losing his first round, he won his next match but then lost to Mikey Wright from Sutton where he should have applied more pressure but possible the summer break was the issue here.
U13’s
Denis won well in the final and no one could come close to his standard, while Dylan Moran gives it his all, Denis physically has grown stronger and his court coverage and consistency of striking the balls is very impressive.
Sean Murphy move up a category and did well in round 1 beating Matthew Lorussoo from Sutton who has improved greatly, he was beaten by Jake Creaven. He finished 6th having beaten Elliot but losing to Jonathan Blaney in 4. Elliot another player who move up a category finished in 7th place, winning his first round 3.1 against another tricky Sutton player Hugh, but losing to Dylan Moran and Sean 3.0, 3.1 respectively. However Sean finished strong beating Ssutton's David Stack.
Omar had some great battles and did well to get through the qualifying round, he finished 16 but had 2 battles where he could have won either match so I’m sure those games will really stand to him.
Jack, another of our U11 who moved up a category, played Denis in round 2 and got the full tour but competed well, he won his match and finished third from beating Jake Creaven 3.1. Frank played in the U11’s and really enjoyed the event playing 4 matches winning 2 and losing 2.
Vlad also U11's was an impressive warrior at the tournament
He gave his all in every match and none of his opponents had it easy. He won his all important first match and finished with 2 wins out of 4 to come 7th a a great result for him.
Report from
Daraa and Henry
