After 20 fans followed the pulsating semi-finals on Monday, a crowd of 40+ turned up on the balcony to see the champions crowned. Max MacKenzie played Alasdair McIntosh in the junior final. Karen Kennedy beat Sarah Robertson in the ladies plate while Jonathan Frame managed to win the plate 3-1 from Ian Forbes.
Ian Forbes was a busy boy because he later played & beat Peter Young in the handicap final. The ladies final saw a new (to us) star in the making as Donna Cruickshank played Fiona McLaren. This was a hard fought final with Fiona doing tremendous retrieving and some fantastic flurries at the front of the court. Donna's hitting saw her just about get a lead in the first 3 games and despite a concerted comeback from Fiona, Donna took it in straight games.
In the open final, a new name on the cup was guaranteed. Allan Hamer had put himself into the mincer to beat Brian Buchanan 3-1 on Monday while Ian Green woke up at 2-0 down to beat Chris Mair 10-9 in the fifth. So who recovered best and would turn up with their A game to put a new name on the cup?
The first game was a close fought marathon with some lung-bursting rallies interspersed with unforced errors seeing Allan shade it 9-7. Ian threw in a lot of errors in the second to lose that quickly 9-3. He had been geeing himself up without his play responding up to that point. Suddenly in the third, it was responding and the drops were clinging, the errors went away and he won it 9-6. You could sense those who had been there on Monday thinking "has the tide turned?". Allan got an early lead in the fourth but Ian upped the pace again and began to catch up. However he didn't maintain it and a few winners later from Allan, he had earned his first club championship.
A total 70 people competed in the club championships which is a fantastic turnout from the mini-leagues. Andrew Claymore was crowned "Mini-leaguer of the year". This and all the other prizes were presented in the bar after everyone had a feed of Jambalaya cooked by the excellent competitions organiser Peter Young.
No comments:
Post a Comment