March’s Rehearsal Tournament (RT) wasn’t exactly going to rival the NCAA’s March Madness College Basketball, but it was not without similarities. Some great athleticism, promising superstars of tomorrow and more than a normal number of upsets… so perhaps we did have the best of all worlds featuring players from near and far all uniting to get that much needed match practice!
The 7th installment of our Rehearsal Tournament Tour featured a range of player experiences, again with guests from as far afield as Virginia and Connecticut and all places in between. Draws boasted a handful of players who have made it to the #1 US Ranking this season, one British Junior Open semi-finalist, two who have won multiple JCT’s and several players who are just dipping a toe in the water of competition. Truly we were surfing the eclectic spectrum!
As intended, the RT was a great learning experience for so many and a perfect opportunity to rehearse for Gold, Silver and Bronze Nationals coming up later this month. A huge, huge, huge (you get the idea) thank you to Coach Claire as always who constructed the draws and directed a picture perfect scheduling display, keeping everyone happy and engaged.. Thanks Coach!
As is custom, we had a qualifying round to place competitors into their appropriate draws with best of three game matches, then the real business of the day got going!
Premier Division saw Coach Jamie defeat JJ and Alex to win the title. As he frequently does, Jamie gave the boys just a little glimpse, without being unduly harsh, of what pro squash looks like. As always, Jamie demonstrated some crowd pleasing deception, showed off his driving game and delivered a few teachable moments for the lucky few. There were other epic matches, with Parth defeating Aidan in a solid semi final match and Eric defeating Sean for the never easy to achieve 5th position in the Premier Division!
D1 was remarkably strong, with Isabella rebounding from a qualifying loss to Eric to dominate a tough Lily in the final, avenging her loss in the West Coast JCT. There were many gems in the D1 matches, with Claire J. looking a million dollars in her preparation for the Gold Nationals, and our hard working crew of Alice, Adam, Edward and Tyler battling out the minor placings. Discovery of the tournament was Jason, not often an ambidextrous assassin assaults a division and his third place was one of the more entertaining parts of a great weekend.
D2 saw Mimi putting another good part of her Gold Nationals preparation in the bank, defeating the ever tough Evan in the final. Evan seems to go home with silverware in each and every event and this was obviously no exception. Well done to Chloe on not throwing in the towel to win the 3rd place towel trophy over a brave Lillianna who was a little, well, a little little… so to speak.
As always D3 delighted Coach Colin and had more stories yet again than you could shake a stick at… By way of results, Dev was triumphant on this occasion, beating Jonah 3/0 in a well contested final with Krish and Ronnie rounding out the placings. Dev has worked hard day in and day out and showed some real sophistication, a couple of nice holds, improved volleying and athleticism… it’s getting there guys, it’s getting there! Shout outs to Jesse, Dannny, Dean and Ethan who played hard, played fair and embodied much of the spirit of the weekend!
Shout outs also to the D3 Consolation Crew, Kaileen, Ansh, Vincent and Harry who have but a handful of matches between them and improved with every serve! Well done on being brave enough to step into competition kids!
Finally, good luck to Aiden, Alex, Eric, Shrikar, JJ, Isabella, Lily, Claire and Mimi for the Gold Nationals in two weeks time. Let’s hope some of the competitive repetitions in our Rehearsal Event make all the difference! For those not in Gold Nationals, remember, TRAINING ALWAYS RUNS and we’ll have our normal Squads and Performance Program in full flight AS ALWAYS!
Our next Rehearsal Tournament will be April 1st, (which is no joke) and you can enter via via our dedicated webpage and until then, see you at training!
