Ebbisham Surrey Open 2024 – Review

The players of the Ebbisham Open enjoyed a lovely sunny day of Racketlon on Sunday 2nd June, and we were delighted to welcome lots of newcomers to Racketlon, with 8 players in the First-timer Doubles and more throughout all the categories.

Firstly, a big thanks to Ray Ryan and Kieran Shelley for an extremely well-run tournament. Ray championed this event and made it happen – including lots of Ebbisham locals who gave it a go!

Men’s A Singles

The men’s A event was wide open, with plenty of players, both regular and new, eyeing up an A grade title. 

#1 seed Jamie Watkin-Rees had a tough first round in racketlon stalwart Jack Bishop. Jack managed to get 13 points in table-tennis, Jamie’s best sport, then needing just 14 in tennis to move through to the semi finals. Angus Pederson, a former racketlon junior player more than decade ago, reemerged recently at Redbridge, winning the men’s B. He defeated +40s player Ollie Close with a huge 21-1 win in badminton to set up a semi final vs Jack.

In the other half of the draw, #2 seed Keith Lesser beat Kieran Shelley +16 to set up a semi final vs James Simpson, who moved past Rob Clayden with an epic squash battle in that match.

James Simpson was part of the GB elite team in 2013 and 2014 and is back after a decade – welcome back James!

Jack and James both won their semi finals +16 to make it to the final. James Simpson took his first A grade title, needing just 8 points in tennis to clinch the win, helped through by another huge squash win.

Angus defeated Keith to come 3rd, squeaking past with a +1 victory, helped by a massive badminton win.

L-R Jack Bishop (2nd), James Simpson (1st)

Women’s A Singles

3 regulars on the ladies UK tour, and emerging junior Ellie Thomas, made up this A grade box, with most players having played each other plenty of times! 

#1 seed Matilda Parslow was the victor, winning all three matches and only dropping one set (the badminton vs Satarra). 

In 2nd place was Satarra Thaker, who recorded her first ever win against 5-time O50s world champion Jo Shelley with a solid 21-6 badminton win to help her through, with Jo coming in 3rd.

  L-R Satarra Thaker (2nd), Matilda Parslow (1st)

+50 Singles

In the O50s we had two boxes of three, with the winners of each box playing for the title. 

Group A saw #1 seed Martyn Langston winning against two newcomers, Jeremy Nixson and Volodymyr Gusak, not needing to get out his tennis racket on his way to the final. 

In Group B, #2 Duncan Marlow had a tough draw in the form of Izzy Bramhall. Runner up in the World Championships in 2019, Izzy was a surprise entry into this event. It was her first racketlon singles tournament since 2019 owing to COVID and knee replacement surgery! Izzy cemented her place in the final with a brilliant 21-7 table tennis win vs Duncan, keeping the middle sports close before closing out the tennis 15-6.

David Kearnes was the 3rd player in the group, pushing Duncan far after a great 21-6 win in squash. However the experienced Duncan ground out the tennis for a +11 win.

In the final, there were 13s all around as Izzy won the first two sports, before losing the squash. However, that wasn’t a big enough margin for Marytn, as Izzy’s solid, consistent tennis brought her the O55s win! Congratulations and welcome back to singles, Izzy!

 L-R Izzy Bramhall (1st), Martyn Langston (2nd)

Women’s B Singles

Kent’s Kayleigh Chapman emerged victorious in this 4-player round robin, with newcomers Tae Catford and Sheila Finnigan, and Beth Milburn, who has returned after playing back in 2015. 

Newcomer Tae Catford had an impressive start to racketlon, winning all her squash sets to less than 10. She pushed #1 seed Kayleigh all the way to the wire, with Kayleigh winning the tennis 21-15 (+4 overall) to win the title and Tae taking the runner’s up position. Well done to Kayleigh on her first UK Racketlon title!

L-R Kayleigh Chapman (1st), Tae Catford (2nd)

Men’s B Singles

#1 seed Barney Medhurst was the winner in the men’s B, winning all his matches narrowly. He had a range of wins and losses in each of the sets – just shows how different profiles of players can give such different results!

In the bottom half, newcomer Paul Puget stunned #2 seed Ishan Bairoliya +21, with a 21-1 squash win helping him through to the semi final. He then beat Andrew Heath +10, with another big squash win, before falling to #1 seed Barney +16

Thomas Agombar had heartbreak vs Dominic Williams as they thought Thomas had won but had miscalculated! They went back on the tennis court, where Thomas needed one out of the next two points, and Dominic needed both. A gumi-arm ensued and Dominic managed to win on the gumi! 

Dominic’s impressive run didn’t end there, as he won the 5/6th playoff vs #2 seed Ishan +1, despite losing the table tennis 21-0!

L-R Barney Medhurst (1st), Paul Puget (2nd) (apologies for photo quality!)

Men’s C Singles

The men’s C was all to play for, with many newcomers and players who have played their first tournament this year. 

Simon Woodhouse had dominant badminton performances throughout, helping him to the C grade trophy.

He beat Tim Fitches (who won his first match +1!) in the final, with a 21-6 scoreline in badminton sealing the deal.

Dhairya Patel came 3rd, beating Stephen Lydiard in a tightly contested match.

  L-R Simon Woodhouse (1st), Tim Fitches (2nd)

U12 Singles

Due to a last minute drop-out, the U12s was a 3 way round robin between brothers Henry and Sebastian, and newcomer Ollie Backinsell. 

Elder brother Henry didn’t lose a sport on his way to victory, although had a tough table tennis battle vs Sebastian. The brothers are looking in good form as they get in some final practice before their GB debut in Rotterdam in August. Well done to Ollie in his first event – we hope to see you at another soon!

 L-R Henry Dobson (1st), Sebastian Dobson (2nd)

First-timer Doubles

4 pairs of new players battled it out in the first-timer doubles category. It was especially great to see so many women giving it a go!

There were some incredibly close matches and scorelines – so close in fact that it ended up with a gumi-arm playoff between 3 of the pairs for 1st place, as they all won 2 matches and lost 1! What a way to finish the day of your first tournament – a gumi-arm playoff is something most people won’t play in their whole racketlon career!

The gumi-arm playoff was between Stella Gowans and Merle Nunneley, Nicole Hard and Alex Reynolds, and Shaun Dominetto and Samantha Johnson. All three pairs played each other at one point in each of the sports to decide 1st – 3rd place.

A slight administrative/player error meant that Nicole and Alex, and Shaun and Samantha ended up all on 5 points – and the result was that they shared the victory! A special mention to all 4 of these medalists as they’re all from the home club, Ebbisham!

Well done to all the first-timers – we hope you enjoyed it! 

 L-R Alex Reynolds and Nicole Hard (joint 1st), Samantha Johnson and Shaun Dominetto (joint 1st)

We have two upcoming events before the World Champs in August – perfect final practice!

The Staffordshire Sprint tournament will be on Saturday 15th June in Keele. Entry closes on Sunday so be quick to get entered! This tournament is a racketlon first with a new ‘sprint’ format, similar to the team events. Ideal if you’re playing the world champs, and if you’re not, fun to try out a new format and play more players throughout the day!

Enter here: https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/tournaments 

A massive thanks to Ray Ryan for championing this event and getting it up and running, including getting so many new players to have a go!

Huge credit also to Tournament Director Kieran Shelley for the smooth running of yet another successful racketlon event.

Thanks also to Ebbisham Sports Club for hosting us and for providing their excellent facilities.

Full results of the Ebbisham Surrey Open 2024 can be found on here: https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/tournament/88653E10-778C-4A0C-9B8E-0D3BED1751E2

Remember to follow UK Racketlon Facebook and Instagram for the latest tournament news and updates.

Happy Racketloning!