THERE was a night to savour for the Salisbury family as they won three of the four classes at the David Viggers Tournament at Blisland Village Hall recently.

In Group A of Class One, defending champion Dave Salisbury proved far too strong for Paul Seez and Ingus Abolnieks while in Group B, John Thorpe, playing his first matches in a number of years, eased through with Jim Rickwood joining him in the last four.

The first semi-final saw Thorpe romp to a 3-0 win over Abolnieks before Blisland captain Rickwood took on Salisbury in a thriller.

Playing long rallies, which captivated the rest of the players, Rickwood took a 2-1 lead before Salisbury recovered his composure to force a decider and eventually scramble his way through.

Thorpe, who showed a tremendous array of attacking shots in his previous matches, was forced to play a slightly different game in the final as Salisbury used all of his experience to change the pace of the game to go 2-0 up.

However, after edging a brilliant third set 13-11, Thorpe then took the next game to force a decider.

But again Salisbury again used all of his knowhow to take the final set 11-8 and retain his title.

In Class Two, it was Dave’s son, Owen, who emerged victorious.

In the semi-finals he beat his league team-mate David Sillifant 3-1 before winning all three sets in the final against North Hill’s Trevor Luckhurst.

Luckhurst, who had played superbly in the build up to the final, including a 3-1 win over Robin Evans in the last four, ran the youngster extremely close in the first two sets before gradually running out of steam.

Apart from the Class One final, the match of the night was Salisbury’s juniors final with the hard-hitting Nathan Jukes.

Jukes threw everything at Salisbury, but in the end Salisbury’s superior defensive skills won the day, winning 13-11, 11-9.

In the Class Three final, Hannah Luckhurst, edged out Dominic Pipe in a five-set thriller.

The league now takes a break for Christmas before resuming in the first week of January with the opening round of the Handicap Cup.