Pride of place at the Cambridge Easter Tournament goes to 8 year old Ted Hope, 8 year old Yujiro Onuma, 10 year old Chaaya Malik, 15 year old Ben Clark, 16 year old Tom Hands and 17 year old Natalie Bacon. All players apart from Tom Hands play at the Cambridge Club so it was great to see so many home players doing well.
Ted Hope won the mini red 8 and under event from a field of 22 boys who came from as far afield as Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Suffolk, Essex and Bedfordshire. Ted beat Kent’s Hugo Coquelin in the semi-final and then Lucian Mischler from Middlesex 10-8 in the final.
Yujiro Onuma continued his excellent season having finished 4th in the Grade 2 tournament the week before at Nottingham he proceeded to win the Sorta-Case Easter Tournament.
He beat Will Jansen from Middlesex 9/7, 7/3 in the semi- finals and then overcame Christopher Smith from Hertfordshire in the final 6/8, 8/6, 7/3. Yujiro has recently been accepted onto the National Programme.
The girls 10 and under event saw Chaaya Malik win her first Grade 3 tournament beating her sister Sama Malik in the final 4/1, 3/5, 10-6.
Due to the rain on the Friday the girls played some of their matches indoors at Hills Road. Both girls had terrific semi -finals and played extremely well in these. Sama beat Isabelle Eaton from Suffolk 4/1, 0/4 and 10 – 3 in the match tie break while Chaaya had an equally hard match beating Charlotte Tatham from Middlesex,1 /4, 4/2, and then 10-6 in the match tie break. The final was also a good match with Chaaya just being the stronger in the end.
In the older age groups Peterborough’s Maki Zivotic and Charlie James did very well to reach the semi-finals in the boys 14 and under event but both then lost to the first and second seeds.
Ben Clark from the Cambridge Club lost in the final of the 16 and under event to Norfolk’s Thomas Fisher 2/6, 5/7. Tom Hands and Dom Lea both got to the semi -finals.
In the boys 18 and under event Cambridgeshire’s Chad Richard beat top seed Tom Fisher in the semi-finals 6/3, 7/5 in a really tough encounter. In the final Chad faced county colleague Tom Hands but he was slightly hampered by a shoulder injury so Tom won relatively comfortably 6/2, 6/2.
In the girls 18 and under event Natalie Bacon got to the final before losing to the more experienced Maria Andrews from Norfolk.
Overall, Sue Rich, referee said ‘it was a very good tournament with nearly 200 entries from all around the Country and great to see the emerging younger players doing so well’.