The Winter Ranking Tournament, the first junior competition of 2019, showed that Junior squash on the island is very healthy. There were sixteen entries with some fantastic squash on show and some players entering for the first time.
The initial rounds saw some interesting ties as the top seeds played the lower ranked players. New player Amy Blearly had a tough game against Oliver Williams but she played very well and gained plenty of experience. Asad Awan dominated his match against Isaac Quayle while James Hennessy, despite some good squash, lost to Oliver Wait. Two promising juniors, Ben Leith and Calum Larkin, had a good battle in this round with Leith taking the victory.
The third round began to produce closer battles including a tight encounter between Harvey Douglas and Christian Webster with the latter taking the win. Another hard fought match was between Ben Leith and Amaline Batty with Leith eventually coming out the victor.
There were some very close ties in the fourth round such as Ellen Rumney and Cristina Cruz who had a very competitive game with Rumney the eventual winner. Isaac Quayle and Harrison Callow also had an evenly matched game with the more experience Isaac taking the win. Calum Larkin battled through to gain a good win over close seed Cameron Bell. The most sharply contested tie of this round was between Oliver Williams and Christian Webster with Williams eventually taking the match although it could have gone either way.
The final round, as expected, saw some well matched exciting encounters such as that between Rebecca Keeley and Asad Awan, with Awan taking the spoils.
The Plate Final (the competition between all the first round losers) saw Isaac Quayle and Calum Larkin battling it out in a close match with Quayle coming out as Plate winner. The third place playoff saw a very exciting match between two juniors who have both showed good improvement through playing league squash, Christian Webster and Ben Leith. Webster just had the edge and came away with the third place trophy.
The final was the battle of the Oliver’s with Oliver Wait pitted against Oliver Williams. Both these youngsters play regularly in the weekly leagues with Wait now a regular in the B league. Eventually after a hard fought match with the second game particularly close, Oliver Wait finished the winner and the overall champion.
The trophy winners were: Winner – Oliver Wait, Runner-up – Oliver Williams, Third Place – Christian Webster, Plate Winner – Isaac Quayle