The second batch of age groups of this years Junior Tournament took place on Sunday 18th March at Alsager Leisure Centre. Tournament
organiser Andy Hancock reports as follows:
At U18 the standard was incredibly high - the games as exciting as the All England
As usual the number of female entrants was low -only 3 girls (there would have been 4 but 1 was ill). In the singles they played a round robin
of 2 games to 21 this was won by Grace Litherland-Clews and the runner up wasRachel Fifer.
In the boys singles there were 9 boys split into 2 groups the larger group played round robin of 5 games to 15 and the smaller group a round robin
of 4 games to 21. In the semi-finals Joseph Smith beat Dom Watkins and Dave Jones beat Kane Welch 21-20, so the final was an all Congleton affair and it was a close high standard game with Dave Jones coming out on top 21-19.
In the boys doubles the 3 boys pairs and 3 mixed pairs played in 1 group in a round robin to 21. The mixed was emphatically won by Grace Litherland-Clews
and George Chaytor with Rachel and David Fiver as runners up. The boys was incredibly close with two pairs on the same record it was decided by 1 point and Joseph Smith and Dave Jones were the winners with Kane Welch and Darren Mo as runners up.
At under 14 level, there were only 2 girls who played best of 3 to 21. The winner was Rowena Young with Emily Barge as runner up.
The boys singles was incredibly close. I have never seen so many 21-20 score lines ! There were 2 groups of 4 playing round robin to 21. In the
semi-finals Myles Molloy-Sherratt beat Josh Allman and Jack Hayter beat Nathaniel Mellon. The final was a close affair with Myles pipping Jack to win.
In doubles the girls pair gamely played in the round robin against the 4 boys pairs, Rowena and Emily were awarded the trophy. Jack and Josh dominated
the doubles and were unbeaten, the runners up were Myles and Henry Molloy-Sherratt.