ADVANCED CATEGORY This finished on Saturday where we started the day with the winner of Group A still to be decided. In the winner takes all clash between Oliver Reynolds and Gabriel Chan - it was Oliver who triumphed in straight games to take the final automatic semi-final berth, joining fellow group winners Benjamin Griffith and Adithya Sridhar. As runner-up of Group A, Gabriel faced Dilup Mahipalamudali, runner-up of Group B, in a play-off for the final semi-final berth. The play-off was due to be played at 1pm, but by 1:15pm there was still no sign of Dilup. In response to this, Robert Keogh contacted him to inquire where he was. The following is a snippet from that phone conversation: (Rob): Hey man, where are are you? (Dilup): Still in Leam, chilling at the bus stop - why? (Rob): Were kinda waiting on you so the semi-finals can be played (Dilup): Really, but you said to be there for 1pm? (Rob): Dilup, its 1:15pm (Dilup): Oh.... (Rob): Yeah... (Dilup): My bad, Ill get a taxi 30 minutes later, Dilup finally strolled onto court ready for the decisive play-off match. Despite little warm-up, he overcame Gabriel 11-8, 11-5, 11-9 with some superb volleying and cross-court drop shots to secure the final semi-final place. Following this, the semi-final draw was made: Adi vs Dilup Oliver vs Ben It was also at this point that Ben suggested that the matches should now still be best of 5 but instead of first to 11, first to 15 - a suggestion he would later regret. In the first semi-final Ben faced Oliver in what many (the three that were there) widely tipped as the decider for the title. In the first game, Ben rushed into an early 5-2 lead with some fine play and impressive court coverage, throwing in a few splits for good measure, before Oliver clawed back the deficit to level at 6-6. The game continued to remain close and energy sapping with the majority of rallies bringing out the best from each opponent until the scores reached 10-10. Bens energy levels finally dropped resulting in him quickly losing the last 5 points to concede the first game 15-10. Both players were worn out but it was clear that it already seemed an uphill climb for Ben to come back even at one game down. The second game followed a similar pattern to the first with both players playing some high quality, high octane squash. At 10-8 down, Bens Nadalesque game would cost him as he ran out of steam, conceding the last 5 points to provide Oliver a 2-0 lead. Bens exertions in the first two games played a large part in how the third game panned out with his error count rising sharply. Oliver managed to play more consistently, making less errors resulting in a 15-5 scoreline and a 3-0 victory overall - booking his place in the final. In the second semi, it would be a battle of the two veterans of the tournament. The first game was a rather tense affair with Dilup controlling the majority of the play resulting in him leading 9-6 before Adi started to find his rhythm leveling at 9-9 and again at 11-11. At 12-11, Dilup still seemed at relative ease with the situation, only to make four cheap errors to hand the first game to Adi. The second game can only be described as Dilup clearly went for his afternoon nap. For the record books, the scoreline was 15-2. Luckily, he was awake for the third game and it turned into quite the thriller. Despite trailing 11-7 and 13-10, Adi managed to drag the scores level at 14 all. Dilup then missed game points at 15-14 and 16-15 before his mistakes would prove costly as Adi reeled off the final three points to secure the game 18-16 and book his place in the final against Oliver. The third place play-off involved two players who had already played each other once in the tournament. On that day Ben comfortably won in straight games but today was a completely different affair. To describe how close and epic it was wouldnt be able to do it justice. Suffice to say, the first four games all went to 9-9. The first game was eventually won by Dilup 17-15 after leading 7-2 before being pegged back to 9 all. It would go on to 11 all, 13 all and even then Ben had game points on two separate occasions. The second game was exceptionally close up until 11-10 to Ben when Dilup eventually tired and lost the game 15-10. After a 10 minute break so that Dilup wouldnt pass out, the third game started with Ben racing into a 7-2 lead before Dilup found some inspiration to overturn it to lead 11-10 before Ben fought back to win it 15-12. Going into the fourth it looked like Dilup had no energy left but that wasnt to be the case. After the game yet again reached 9-9, Dilup opened up a significant lead and found himself 14-11 up with 3 game points - only for Ben to save them all. Dilup though would not throw in the towel just yet and won the next two points to send us into a fifth and deciding game. The final game came down to whose fitness levels were higher and after opening up a 10-4 lead Ben went on to win 15-7 as an exhausted Dliup struggled to maintain the very high level of squash played in the previous four games. Congrats to Ben Griffith for claiming 3rd place after excelling in the group stages and understandably can feel a touch unlucky with the semi-final draw. Commiserations to Dilup who despite being late, provided plenty of entertainment in his three matches including two hotdog exhibition winners which will live long in the memory. In the final, Adi would go in as the slight underdog going against Oliver. This seemed to play a part in the early exchanges as Oliver raced into a 7-0 lead in the first game before Adi claimed his first point. However, as the game wore on Adis confidence grew and despite being 11-2 down he managed to bring it back to 13-9 before Oliver won the last two points to claim the first game 15-9. The second game was a much tighter affair with Adi again coming from behind to level the scores at 10 all from 7-2 down. It could have gone either way at 13-12 to Oliver but Oliver again managed to keep his cool to secure the game 15-12. By this point, Adi had thrown everything he had at Oliver and knowing he would need to win the last three games, he would have to take alot more risks and try to keep the points short. Unfortunately, it would result in more errors than winners and Oliver claimed what would be the final game 15-4. Therefore, congratulations to Oliver for winning 15-9. 15-12, 15-4 resulting in a first prize of a new Dunlop racket along with the title of WarwickSquash Advanced Open Tournament Champion 2014! Commiserations to our runner-up Adi but he did win a bottle of prosecco so you know - its not all bad (just dont show it to Ben ) Thankyou to everyone who took part in this years tournament, I hope youve all enjoyed it and look forward to seeing you at club nights as well as socials throughout the year.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 13:23:11 +0000
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