07 & 08/02/09 - Scottish National Championships, Edinburgh

Highlands & Islands squash players excelled at last weekends Scottish Championships at Edinburgh Sports Club.

A Squad of twelve players from the Region took part against the best in Scotland and came home with 3 National Champions.

12 year old Kirsty Lobban (Inverness) was favourite to lift the under 13 Girls title but she was pushed all the way in the final by Claire Gadsby from Crieff. Kirsty was 2-1 down but she steadied her nerves to eventually win 11-9 in the fifth game.

Wick under 13 player Liam Beales had a strenuous weekend winning 3 and losing two very tight matches to finish 13th.

Kyle Gribben (Inverness) almost matched Kirstys' achievements when he was 2-1 up and had 3 match balls in the Boys under 15 final against Calum Johnston from Kinloss. It was Calum, however, who took the last two games to win the title.

Fergus Richards (Wick) had a tight match with Kyle in the semi-final and lost 3-1 in the final to Andrew Forbes (Aberdeen) and finished in 4th place.

Gary Beales (Wick) did even better from being seeded 8th he came through to finish in fifth place. These two lads are improving rapidly and are a good bet for this event next year.

The Highlands had a strong presence in the Boys under 17 event with Jamie Henderson from Thurso and Greg Lobban, Ally McCorquodale, Ewen Urquhart and Allan McKay all from Inverness. It was Greg who took the honours by beating Douglas Kempsall (Edinburgh) 3-1 in the final. Douglas fought well in the first two games but Greg took command to win the last two comfortably.

Ewen, seeded eight, lost a very close quarter final against number 1 seed Ross Lawrie (Glasgow) by 3 games to 2 and then went on to beat the 4th and 5th seeds to finish in 5th place.

Ally McCorquodale met Greg in the quarter final who was to strong winning 3-0. Ally went on to finish 8th.

Allan McKay has another year in this event and if he continues to progress as he did in this tournament he could be in the contention next year. He won two games to finish in 10th place.

Jamie almost took out the eventual finalist, Douglas Kempsall in the first round. He continues to grow stronger and a few months more strength & conditioning should make a huge difference to his game.

The last event was the under 23 tournament which had two players from Inverness. The number 1 seed, Alan Clyne, won convincingly to retain the title. He was joined by Garry McKay who came 3rd to round a very successful weekend for the Highlands & Islands.

report from Robin Hammill.

 

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Date	Event	Link
--- 2010 ---
July
23	HISA AGM at Inverness Tennis & Squash Club - 7.30pm.	-
July & August
-	SUMMER SQUASH CAMPS 2010 These Camps will run for 3 weeks during the school holidays and players should choose which week most suits their ability. Most of the activity will be Squash related but there will also be strength and conditioning sessions and other group activities. The sessions will run from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. each day and lunch is included. CLICK 'GO' to the right for more info or Contact Robin - dancenamix@hotmail.com.	GO