With the county leagues parked for the Christmas period (the 1sts and 2nds are both comfortably mid-table in their leagues) some of the team squad members were able to turn their attention towards individual tournaments instead. Unfortunately a scheduling clash meant it was an either/or choice as the Eastern Regional leg of the England Masters Tour, which took place at Ipswich Squash Club this year, was running over the same days as the Cambridgeshire County Closed even, at it’s usual venue of Hunts County.

Kate Bradshaw opted for the Masters Series – well, she has another England place to chase and the ranking points on offer are important. That said, Kate’s position was pretty decent after winning the O45s event at the West Champs in Cheltenham last month. And despite being asked to play some relative whippersnappers as a slightly disappointing number of female entries meant no O45s draw but rather a combined O35s/40s/45s one (or just plain O35s, given that if you are over 40 you are over 35 as well!). Despite returning to a previous age group Kate was still the top seed in the draw.
She quickly demonstrated why by cruising through her pool on Saturday without dropping a game, on indeed coming close to doing so. She registered an 11-8, 11-1, 11-2 win over Jennifer Wright (Essex) in her opener (14 minutes) and then a more evenly distributed effort to see off Hampshire’s Francesca Whyte 11-6, 11-6, 11-5.

Gemma and Kate (right) - Photo Credit: England Squash Masters

Sunday saw Kate back at the venue to play her final against Gemma Barber (Devon). According to the Chairman’s report on the event “Bradshaw was too good in the final, however, lifting the ball to a great length for a 3/0 and fifth Regional Championship” Yeah, that sounds like a Katie B game.
As referenced this was title number 5 of Kate’s career on the Masters Tour. It followed hot on the heels of her fourth crown, which Kate claimed just last month by winning the O45s in the West Regional. With two of the four regional titles bag, and a run to the Semis of last years British Open Kate is well on course for another appearance in England colours at the 2025 Home Nations – she currently leads the Women’s O45 points list with 980 to her name (300 earned for each of the recent titles). Two others are close behind on 840 and 820, but then a large gap back to the fourth and fifth English players on 505 and 420 respectively.

Kate receives her Trophy from Julie-Ann Pergram. Photo Credit: England Squash Masters

More on this, and like this, to come through the rest of the season in all probability…

Whilst Kate was crushing the opposition in Ipswich, other Melbourn members were taking on the remaining cream of the Cambs Squash crop in the County Closed event at Hunts County. Four players set out for the event on Saturday morning: Matt Sampson playing the main competition draw (Mixed rather than Men’s, but with the likes of Kate and Ali Loke who are at a level to play in Grade A in action elsewhere this was an all-male draw this year), Matt Walker in the Grade B Mixed competition, Vinod Duraikan defending his Men’s O55s crown, and Jan Brynjolffssen having taken the plunge by entering both the Grade B and the Men’s O45s events.

Let’s take the players one by one, starting with Matt S. Round 1 paired Matt, who was in the 3/4 seed position in the draw, up with Swavesey’s Simon Hudson. This was an interesting match, but one Matt was always in control of it even when Simon produced some clean rallies. Points were traded at times. However those trades were in a roughly two-to-one ratio in Matt’s favour as his smooth movement undermined his opponents game, Simon becoming increasingly dispirited from midway through the second as he clearly started to wonder midway through the second how on earth he could hit a winner. Matt progressed with an 11-6, 11-4, 11-3 score.
Next up for Matt was a Quarter-Final against the younger of the Ramsay brothers from Peterborough, Oliver of that ilk. This was another high-class game, with both players moving around the court, lobbing the ball up to buy themselves time and trying to outmanoeuvre each other. Your correspondent missed the opening game so only has Matt’s comment post-match that he had a lead and let it slip away to go on. This was mentioned because the same thing happened in the second as Matt’s mid-game 2/3 point advantage was whittled away at the death. Indeed Oliver got to game-ball first but Matt saved this. There then followed a dramatic five minute spell as game-balls were traded, until eventually Oliver sneaked things 16-14. In amongst the drama Matt had begun to clutch at his side when fully stretched out. This prompted a change of tactics in the third as he went all out attack, looking to kill earlier in the piece. This worked wonderfully for a game, which was taken in a rush, but Oliver dug in to defend in the fourth and then the hamper became decisive with Matt exiting the event 9-11, 14-16, 11-3, 8-11.

Moving on to the other Matt, Matt Walker, who was playing in the Grade B event. The first round draw paired him with Martyn Goodger (Ely) in a reprise of County League matches of yore. The match presented a contrast in styles between Martyn, who belies his years (he was also in the O55s) with a fitness and hitting based game, whereas Matt is much more about the back corner, step in to kill one-two punch. These sort of matches can sometimes fly… but at others they can be bitty as one style gets on top of the other. This was one of the latter. Whose style was on top ebbed and flowed, but with such different approaches there was never a time when both players were playing well, which is what gives you a good match. However, critically for Matt, he had more of the times in the ascendancy, including the decisive fifth and that meant a 5-11, 11-3, 7-11, 11-8, 11-4 win.
That sent Matt on to the Quarter-Finals where he ran into top seed for the competition Connor Harmer (Comberton). Game one saw Matt trying to out-rally a hyper-fit 18-year-old, who has added consistency to his game over the last 18 months – the reason why he was the no.1 seed for this. This didn’t work as rallies just went on until Matt was ran out of them. A suggestion to try attack was implemented for the opening part of game two, but with only minor success as Connor claimed it. Instead Matt had more joy defending, drawing errors from his opponents racket and cutting out the ones from his own in the opening part of the second game. He may even have been 5-1 up at one point. However Connor reacted to this by cleaning up his own performance and roared back to claim it. Matt went out 5-11, 5-11, 8-11.

Next up we have Vinod Duraikan, who has won the Men’s O55s category (officially still holding the legacy name of the Men’s Vintage – like a fine wine) on a number of occasions previously. Basically ever since he was eligible. This competition only had four entrants, so was played on a Round Robin basis. Day One saw Vinod playing just a single game which he cruised through against Marcus Lattimer (host club Hunts County) 11-4, 11-3, 11-6, Vinod’s movement and calmness on the ball proving altogether too smooth for Marcus’ somewhat frenetic approach to the sport.
First up on the morning of day two for Vinod was a match against Martyn Goodger of Ely. This again was something of a mismatch in Vinod’s favour as Martyn’s approach, rather similar to Marcus’, was just not powerful or accurate enough to discomfit a player of Vinod’s class. Once again it was a relative breeze, Vinod always having something in hand as he won 11-7, 11-2, 11-7.
Both of these wins for Vinod were completely expected. Also expected was two pretty well equally straightforward wins for Newmarket’s Santiago Uribe Lewis over Martyn and Marcus – its almost like the organisers knew that Vinod vs Santi was the decisive match of the event as this was scheduled, despite being technically part of a round robin, midway through the finals on the glass back court. It was, effectively, another one as whichever player won would take the crown. And Vinod was the clear favourite for that, which he showed with two clean games to rattled into a comfortable lead. However Santi was not done, pushing hard at the third with Vinod briefly losing control of his game. A bit of a mind-clearance ahead of the fourth worked wonders though, Vinod deciding he had over-complicated in game three and simplifying, with consistent and sensible line-and-length and into the open space kills working wonders (… new information…) as Vinod won through 11-6, 11-4, 6-11, 11-3 to be County Champion again.

And finally, on to Jan. Making a rare appearance at the County Closed, his first in well over a decade, Jan opted to make up for lost time by entering two events, the Grade B and the Men’s O45s (Men’s Vets). The Vets was the first match up, indeed the first of the entire event as opponent Sean Broderick (Hunts County) needed to be done by lunchtime on the Saturday. However Sean is not one to rush his time on court, building rallies and running Jan about for the first game which he took comfortably. Like a dog chasing a ball Jan ran and ran in game two, and this worked… to an extent. The extent being claiming the game eventually, after an extended tie-break, but this was win the battle, lose the war stuff as he paid for that in the next two, losing 8-11, 17-15, 6-11, 3-11.
This meant Jan had a full match in his legs when he took on 3/4 seed Graham Broughton in Round 1 of the Grade B event. But it also meant Jan’s match instincts had been sharpened, and this was clear in the first four or five points as Graham tried to get up to speed and just watched Jan, already at match pace, killing the ball. Indeed for two games Jan’s play was right up there with the best he can produced, pushing his opponent back and then stretching to drop tightly. When going well, don’t overthink it. Jan overthought it. He got conservative in the third when playing aggressively had worked previously, Graham took over the front position on the court and the match changed. Jan was never able to implement Vinod’s advice, likely sound stuff, to try some power trickle boasts as he was now not on balance in the front corners. It all added up to an 11-6, 11-5, 3-11, 4-11, 6-11 defeat and the feeling of a winnable match that had got away.
That dropped Jan down to the B Plate, where he faced Alex Harvey in Round 1. An earlier watch of Alex’s Round 1 loss in the main draw had seen him play a game based hugely on drop shots. Jan went on to push his opponent deep and then move very high on the ‘t’. This worked perfectly, Alex dropping into corners that were easily within reach. This really was one-way traffic as it turned out Alex didn’t have another approach, with Jan rounding off his first day with an 11-1, 11-3, 11-3 stroll.
The B Plate continued on day two with a Semi-Final against Phillip Blake (Spalding). This match could hardly have been a greater contrast to the one with Alex as Phillip’s approach was power as opposed to touch. But short power, looking for the bashed kills from deep. The response was actually pretty similar, push your opponent deep and get up to the ‘T’. But instead of racing forward for the ball it was about staying light on ones feet to be able to react to and get under the fizzing orb, and then knocking it low over the tin for counter winners. This worked wonderfully in game one as Jan barely made an error. Some more tins showed up in the second and third but it was still a style set that worked pretty nicely as Jan won 11-3, 11-6, 11-7 to get to another final.
Another? Well, yes. You see that loss to Sean in the first match of the tournament had, by a quirk of the draw, meant Jan was the first finalist known of the entire event as he received a bye through the Vets Plate Semi. That meant he met Simon Hudson in the final. Simon is an extremely useful player by Jan’s standards, but the advantage Jan had was he was also evidently an extremely tired player. The skills were still there though, Simon playing enough tight shots to work through the first two games pretty comfortably. Jan then produced probably his best Squash of the entire weekend in the third, keeping good length and width and covering well in the front corners – one rolled counter-drop felt really good. This won Jan a game, but no more than that as he couldn’t maintain such a level for long and Simon’s greater class eventually told – Jan was beaten 6-11, 5-11, 11-8, 7-11.
But there was still one final game to be played – the B Grade Plate final. That paired Jan with… Martyn Goodger. Him again! In fact this pairing was players no. 2 and 3 in terms of greatest time on court over the weekend, Martyn playing 7 matches and in excess of 400 points whilst Jan had 6 and 350 to his name. This resulted in a first game that was… a bit stiff. This suited Jan as he could pump the ball deep, move forward and then drop against an opponent who was no longer moving. And moving is what Martyn’s game is based on. Again as with the Semi the first game was near mistake-free, and the second was not as a few points were given away. However Jan still won it and then went 5-2 up in the third. On his way to cruise to the title? No, because here he lost his way and somehow found himself in a battle. One game point was saved at 9-10, but a dodgy backhand volley drop handed Martyn a second chance, which he took when another loss shot from Jan gave the Ely player a chance to boast a winner. Was this game on? Jan made sure he wasn’t by going back to basics, aiming the ball at Martyn’s less reliable backhand rather than trying to wrong-foot on his much stronger forehand. Sometimes Squash is a simply game. This swiftly re-established dominance and rattled through the game to wrap up an 11-3, 11-7, 10-12, 11-4 win and claim a trophy for his weekend’s work.

Jan (left) and Vinod with their trophies