Leamington Closed Championships
The Leamington Closed championships were staged at St Nicholas Leisure Centre in Warwick on Sunday and provided many exciting tussles. Most of the Finals will be played on 12th April at Kenilworth Wardens Cricket Club with the two semi-finals of the Men’s Singles also being a feature.
In the first, St Georges’ Mark Jackson will play Rugby’s Ryan Lines, who got home 11-9 in the 5th in a thrilling quarter final against Deepak Chandrababu of Lillington Free Church. In the other Jesse Kendrick-Hill, Rugby, plays Ryan Stockham, Phoenix, with the latter triumphing 12-10 in the 5th in his quarter-final against Church junior Lee Dorning.
The Ladies Singles will see Colebridge’s Kate Hughes oppose St Georges’ Tracey Fletcher. Both of the top two seeds came to grief in the semis of the Men’s doubles with Stockham and St. Georges’ Alan Hewitt seeing off Jackson and Lines, and Free Church junior duo, Timmy Cooper and Lee Dorning, defeating team mates Chandrababu and Chris Mulligan. In the Mixed Doubles Hughes and Stockham will contest the final against Fletcher and Chandrababu.
The top two seeds safely negotiated their way to the Veterans’ Final with Mark Jackson to face Simon Griew (WCC). WCC’s Phil Paine will be a double finalist facing club mate Nilton Green in the Over 50s’ Singles and Snitterfield’s Tim Fell in the over 60s.
The Youths’ Singles was very competitive with Lines and FC’s Sam Weaving the Finalists. Kendrick-Hill and Colebridge’s Sam Henderson emerged to earn a place in the Junior Boys’ Singles and the Girls’ final will be between Free Church’s Olivia Fletcher, who survived a 5 game contest with club-mate Katie Singleton, and Colebridge’s Lisa Rinnhofer, who also edged a 5 gamer against Eve Briscoe (FC). Cooper and Dorning will have a second doubles Final appearance when facing Henderson and Kendrick-Hill in the Junior Boys. The Junior Girls doubles was played out on the day in a round robin and Jenny and Katie Singleton( bothFC) sprung a surprise when defeating Fletcher and Rugby’s Milly Bradshaw in 4 to land the title.
It will be an all Free Church final in the well supported Under 15 boys event as Timmy Cooper will face Adam Cofler. Lisa Rinnhofer recovered from 1-2 and 4-8 down against Katie Singleton to book a place in the Under 15 Girls Final where she faces Fletcher. The under 13 Boys attracted only two entries, both from Free Church, so the Final was played on the day but the standard was excellent as Jack Green beat Robbie Fitchford in 4. Seven contested the Under 13 Girls Singles with Colebridge’s Sophie Rinnhofer emerging to face Ciara Hancox (FC) in the Final.
The Under 11 Boys’ singles was also played on the day with three entrants, all from Free Church. Sebastian Priest, in his first ever competition, won both his matches to become Champion with Nicholas Ho the runner-up. Ho and the third player, Eduardo Bolanos, are young enough to compete next year. Again the Under 11 girls are greater in number and six stars of the future showed their considerable skills with Sophie Rinnhofer reaching her second Final where she will oppose Milly Green of FreeChurch.
The Graded Singles provided players with the opportunity to pit their skills against higher ranked players and several took advantage. The Grade 1 Singles’ Final will be between Kendrick-Hill, who defeated Lines 11- 8 in the 5th in the semi, and Stockham, who himself had a close 5 game match with Kate Hughes. The Grade 2 Final will be an all Free Church affair as Division 2’s Sam Wiggins opposes Division 3’s Adam Cofler who enjoyed an outstanding win over club mate Sam Weaving. Cofler will make it a third Final upon reaching the Grade 3 Singles ,after overcoming Jack Green in 5, as he takes on the rapidly improving James Robertson (FC) who claimed the scalp of Eathorpe’s Will Apted in 4. Tom Fletcher (FC) will appear in the Grade 4 Singles Final when taking on Milly Bradshaw who defeated Lewis Singleton 13-11 in the 5th in the semis. The Grade 5 Singles will be between Fitchford and Eathorpe’s Callum Pickering.
One of the most enjoyable and well supported events is the Parents/Child doubles. This year was no exception and on Finals Night it will be good to see Jack and Nilton Green take on Lisa and Mike Rinnhofer.
Finally the Handicap Singles - a marathon event with over 50 entries started at 9:30 and continued on all day the two players that will contest the final are Emily Beasley (FC) and Callum Pickering (Eathorpe)
