Our first Rehearsal Tournament of 2024 went off with a bang, with our younger players excelling!
Five Divisions were contested, with the full range of Squash Tigers experience represented! At the top we had Coach Jamie, competing on the PSA Tour, showing the way and giving some of our more experienced players a look into the speed and skill required at the top end of the game, right through to some of our learners who are preparing for their future charge into the US Squash Tour! To catch up on some of the highlights check out our Insta Story and for the big photo dump of the day, our Squash Tigers FACEBOOK page.
Our usual preamble, for those of you new to the Squash Tigers world, as background, Rehearsal Tournaments are:
“ … in-house events conducted at SQUASHTIGERS! For the 2023-24 season (Sep 2023 thru May 2024), the Rehearsal Tournament Series comprises 9 tournament events. The Rehearsal Tournament Circuit attracts entries from top juniors. It also provides a great home for beginners to gain rehearsal before they step out into the US Squash ranking world. Players play a minimum of three and a maximum of four matches on a Saturday, commencing first thing and concluding early afternoon. The event does not count towards rating or ranking, so players may be relaxed enough to develop their games in a friendly environment, yet serious enough so that they will be ready for the wider world when they get out there!
Let's start with the future... so to speak!
D4 was the home of Girl Power with a veritable gaggle (is that the collective noun?) of young ladies! Long story short, Kaileen came away with her first tournament victory, with Chloe and Audrina filling up the podium. Shoutout to Riyanshi, our littlest competitor, who was brave and effortful and will be quite an accomplished player before tooooooo long.
D3 was also a Future Stars bracket! We saw Ansh bounce back from a qualifying defeat to take 1st place! Riya and Dennis rounded our the podium after some solid wins. Vincent, who may well be renamed "Super Vincent", played a storming event to finish 4th and is virtually unrecognizable from the little player that walked into the club last season. Closing out the bracket was Dean, Noah, Yaseen and Celina, all getting qualify match play and behaving with high standards of sportsmanship and effort.
D2 was won by Neil, who travelled through the draw relatively untroubled and defeated Tony in the final. Tony looked a million dollars throughout and every bit his BU11 top 32 ranking! Will defeated the ever improving Alison for 3rd place in his first Rehearsal event. Rounding out the bracket were Matthew, Yohan, Ethan and Jesse who all continue to impress.
With the High School season in full swing, it was up to some our our youngsters to step up to the D1 mark, and thus it was so! Chloe deserves much credit for bouncing back from a qualifying defeat to Madeleine to take the D1 silverware! Chloe defeated Julian in the final, with Anika taking third over Mimi. Shoutouts to Dev and Evan, two of the coaches real favorites who rounded out the draw.
The Premier Division was won by Coach Jamie, who entertained the crowd and gave the players some valuable high tempo experience. Coach defeated Eric in a fun final, (when is it ever not fun with Eric?) with Erika and Edward rounding out the top 4. Excellent work especially from Erika, in her preparation for Texas where I'm sure she's primed for an upset or two! Madeleine was her usual diligent self and dominated the back bracket over Dhruv, Vaibhav and Sriya.
At training we walk into a "boasting week" and on a US Squash front, next weekend sees the Brooklyn Gold and not long after the Big Dogs are off to the final JCT of the season in Texas. School squash resolves itself soon, with Middle School Nationals this coming weekend and then the High School Nationals February 23! Big things ahead, much work on the courts and it’s all to be played for... see you all at training!
