The Hogarth Health Club Squash Final 2015
From a draw of 20 players the tournament started in mid October 2014 and through some long, dark, cold Winter months, whittled its way down to 2 finalists tonight!
Michael Blosse in the top half of the draw fought his way past Andrew Monk, James Roberts and Tom Vallance in his Semi Final. Alice Shimmin only dropped 1 game having beaten Jonathan Biddell, Mark Halcrow and Peter Charles in her Semi Final.
The scene was set, the gallery was packed, let battle, sorry I mean play, commence.
The court was warm and without an unopened double yellow dot ball we had to settle for a single; it looked as though there were going to be some long rallies with the ball whizzing around the court.
Michael won the toss and served first, winning a string of points in succession with only 4 errors along the way. This was a very quick game and Michael took it 9 - 1. First blood Michael.
Both opponents were nervous and service changed hands rapidly in the beginning of the 2nd game. The score was 4 - 1 to Michael and he suddenly hit a purple patch and advanced to 7 - 1. Alice rallied and took a couple of points. It looked as though she was settling. Michael then hit a lucky frame shot to take service back and after a 20+ shot rally went 8 - 2 up, game ball! Alice struck back and took the next point, 3 - 8. Michael hit the nick to take serve and then took the 2nd game 9 - 3. 2 - 0 to Michael.
3rd game. Alice needed to dig deep if she was to stay in contention. Both players were by now hot and sweaty and breathing hard. The 3rd game saw some long rallies with service alternating between the 2. It was fairly evenly matched until Michael broke through to 5 - 1. Alice countered and took the next point, Michael responded with some consistently hard hit, wall clinging shots, combined with early takes. It was too tight for Alice and Michael swiftly took the 3rd game 9 - 2.
Final result: Michael beat Alice 3 games to 0. Well played to both players and thank you to all participants.
Here's to the next tournament starting in October - better start practising NOW!