It’s finals day at the Northumbria County Closed where 8 finals are waiting to be played this evening.
The Mens A
There will see a repeat of last years final with the top two seeds, Dave Barnett and Liam Gutcher going head to head for the title. Dave faced 3/4 seed Matt Hardy in his semi final where he won a well fought match 3-0. Liam had a tough game against the other 3/4 seed Paul Lord who kept going until the very end, Gutcher however came through to win 3-1 and set up the county final going to seedings.
Ladies
In the first semi final 3/4 seed Maria Bainbridge nearly caused a huge upset against top seed Sam Ward where she came back from 2-0 down to 2-2 and 9/4 and then 10/9 match ball up. Ward however pulled through to scrape a win 12/10 and secure her place in the final for the 4th time in a row. In the second semi final Tynemouth’s Hannah Cliff defeated Emma Gregson 3-1 to beat her seeding and reach her 1st county final.
Mens B
The first semi final saw Sean Millington put out second seed Michael Mattimore with a 3-0 win, he will now play top seed Alex Robertson, who beat Stuart Proctor in his semi final 3-0, the final begins at 6pm.
Mens O45
The final is set to be a good one with the top seeds Glenn Ward and Russell Hunter both through with 3-1 wins in their semi finals.
Ladies O40
Tonight’s final will be a tight one between top seed Louise Robertson and Dawn Ward. They both had very tight semi finals where Louise won 15/13 in the fifth against Gill Millington and Dawn beat Nicky Dobson 16/14 in the fifth.
B Plate
The final is between Andy Purdy and Chris Hull.
C Plate
This final will be the battle of the brothers as Max and Angus Forster take on each other.
Finals start at 4:30 and run through to 7:30, followed by the presentation.
We look forward to seeing you all there!!
Hey Northumbria squash – Bobby here! What a cracking weekend it’s been down at Tynemouth Squash Centre watching the County Closed Open. I’ve seen some fantastical squash over the past few days – and the finals day yesterday was more exciting than when I got my new Dunlop Maxply Light in 1984. I really like this new 1 Under PAR scoring, which they copied from golf, where u can choose to score a point in whatever rally you choose. It makes the games a lot more interesting as both players can win the same rally, which can confuse the markers though if they’re not watching both sides of the court! I can’t remember all the names in all the finals, but I watched 2 old blokes in one final – I think they were called Ronny FreeMe and John Thompsoff – having some great rallies. One of them was 4 shots long – it was amazing! The one that talked all the way through it won.
I fell asleep at the bar for a bit listening to some bloke who looked like Steptoe drinking Brown Ale, Purvisn’t I think he was called, and when I woke up the last match was on. That was so good. Some bloke with short socks was playing a bloke with long socks – I think it was the battle of the sockses final. They were both really good as well, probably even better than me mate Freddy Forehand who got up to league 4 at Temple Park Leisure Centre. Some of the rallies were lasting like – for 6 and 7 shots. Unbelievable. The only thing i couldn’t understand was if they were that good, why couldn’t they get the ball away from the wall and into the middle? Sometimes it looked like the ball was stuck on the wall it was that close to it. Me mate Freddy could hit it straight down the middle nearly every shot. Anyway it was a great game, I think short socks won coz they gave him a big silver bowl thing to wash them in at the end, which was a nice touch. All in all though it was a great tournament – next year I’m gonna enter myself, if I can learn to hit it on the strings a bit more. Laters. Bobby.