Northumberland Super Series & Hertfordshire Open – Review
We were treated to a rare racketlon double-header just over a week ago- with the Northumberland Open in Newcastle on Saturday, November 2nd, followed by the Hertfordshire Open in Letchworth on Sunday, November 3rd.
Lets take a quick dive into the results!
Northumberland Open 2024 – Super Series 4
Starting with Saturday, the final super series qualifying event of the 2024 season took place at the magnificent Northumberland Club in Newcastle. This was the last opportunity for players to secure their places in the super series rankings and qualify for the Super Series Finals in Nottingham on Sunday, December 1st.
Mens A
Pre tournament favourite and Men’s B winner at the 2024 World Championships, Johnny Ritter, stormed to victory in the Men’s A, winning all three games in comfortable fashion. Local squash supremo Gavin Stephenson was his closest challenger and finished in 2nd place, after coming through an epic battle with Ollie Barton on a gummi-arm! Ollie finished in 3rd place, having defeated his dad, Peter in the opening match of the day, to go home with the family bragging rights.
Women’s A
In the first match of the Women’s A, Mollie Patterson faced last year’s Northumberland Open champion Jo Shelley, in one of the most highly anticipated matches of the day. Jo started well and must have been pleased to pick up 8 points in the opening game against England table tennis star, Mollie. In the badminton Mollie grew her lead with a 21-15 victory, before Jo fought back to take the squash 21-5. Mollie entered the tennis +3 and managed the required 19 points to take the match; an impressive victory for a rising racketlon star.
Jo bounced back in the next match, defeating Alisha Gupta +21 to secure 2nd place. Mollie then took on Alisha, continuing her hot run of form by winning the initial 3 sports, confirming victory before tennis. This was Mollie’s maiden UK Racketlon elite title and hopefully the first of many!
Men’s B
Men’s B was split into 2 groups, with top seed Ian Johnston starting off in Group A against Chris Sharpe and Jack Bonner. There was an early upset when Ian was beaten by Chris, who also defeated Jack to go through to the final. Group B was headed up by 2nd seed and GB junior Thomas Agombar, who showed his form to beat Joe Constable and last year’s Men’s C winner Robert Hill, without needing to take his tennis racket out of the bag.
This set up and interesting final showdown between Chris and Thomas, and Thomas raced into an early lead with 21-8 and 21-3 victories in TT and badminton, respectively. Chris regained his composure to take the squash 21-3 and leave Thomas requiring 8 points to seal the title in the tennis. The match was far from over, with Chris a highly skilled tennis player, and he used all that experience to keep his nerve and restrict Thomas to 7 points, sending the match to a gummi-arm playoff!
Men’s C
The Men’s C saw Henry Bullough rack up some impressive victories on his way to the title. After comprehensive victories over Ish Atchia and Joe Chitnis, Henry faced James Patterson in the final, who himself had picked up wins against Jordan Whitmore and Ali Saleem. James raced into the lead with a 21-2 TT win, before Henry took control in the other sports to win by +7.
Ali Saleem claimed 3rd place with a before-tennis victory over Joe Chitnis.
Junior U18’s
Number #1 seed Fergus Wilson managed to go one better than his 2nd place finish at the Oxfordshire Open last year, defeating Jacob Atchia in the final, +23 before tennis. Tom Richardson picked up 3rd with a hard fought victory over Enzo Mills.
Junior U14’s
In another healthy junior entry, the U14’s see’s 4 first-time players compete for the title. Ronald Xue Lee showed fantastic form, especially in badminton and squash, winning all 3 matches to take the title. Harvey Tse was particularly impressive on the squash and tennis court, winning 2/3 to pick up 2nd place. Third place was won by Joel Wass, who edged out Philip Moss by +13.
Full results can be found on tournament software.
Congratulations to all players on another fantastic showing of racketlon, played in great spirit. Huge thanks to tournament director Kieran Shelley for yet another smoothly-run tournament and also to the Northumberland Club for use of your fantastic facilities. We hope to be back next year!
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Next up, lets take a quick dive into the Hertfordshire Open,
Hertfordshire Open 2024
Letchworth Sports and Tennis Club played host to our 2nd racketlon tournament of the weekend, expertly organised as ever by racketlon legend George Roberts. Whilst no Super Series points were up for grabs here, the competition was still fierce, so let’s take a look brief look through the results.
Mens A
Last year’s tournament winner, Dan Busby came in as number #1 seed in the Men’s A and used all of his experience to defeat badminton specialist Angus Pederson in the opening round. Next up for Dan was Jamie Watkin-Rees, who had edged out David Bennett in his 1st round encounter. Jamie won the TT but Dan rallied to take the squash and badminton, before finding the required 4 in tennis to ease into the final.
On the other side of the draw, number #2 seed Anant Gupta defeated tournament organiser George Roberts +33, before facing Ross Wilson, who had beaten Billy Sutton-Maddocks +25 before tennis in his opening fixture. Ross proved to be on top form against Anant, taking the first 2 sports to lead +5 into squash. Anant recovered and took the squash 21-13, before Ross ran out with victor with a 21-5 tennis win.
In the final, Dan got off to a good start, restricting Ross to 13 in TT, before consolidating with 21-16 wins in both badminton and squash. This left him needing only 4 points in the tennis and he duly delivered, to grab yet another UK elite title to add to his collection.
3rd place was won by Anant Gupta, who got the better of Jamie Watkin-Rees by +4.
Women’s A
The Women’s A was a 4 player round-robin event and number #1 seed Katie Hill roared to her first UK Racketlon title. Her main challenge came from the experienced Joanna Bennett, but Katie proved too strong in TT, badminton and tennis, to win by +17.
Frances Steel took 3rd place with an imposing +23 win over her former doubles partner, Hannah Taylor.
Men’s B
In a first round battle of youth versus experience, number #1 seed and GB veteran Duncan Marlow was defeated by rising junior star Raif Fontanelli by +7. The other side of the draw saw another seed out of the title running with 2nd seed Ishan Bairoliya losing out to Paul Puget by +9. Paul faced Ricky Hardcastle in the semi final, who has beaten Oliver Dickmann-Pena by +10 in the final opening round. Paul proved too strong on the badminton and squash court, winning by +9 to advance to the final. Raphael Reeves faced Raif in the other semi, having earlier squeezed past Nicolas Dickmann by +2! This was to be another tight affair, concluding in a fabulous tennis set, which saw Raif secure the win with the scores at 18-19.
In a final of two halves, Paul made a superb start, taking TT 21-15, followed by badminton 21-3. Raif was undeterred, knowing his best sports were still to come, he took squash 21-6, before keeping Paul to 8 in tennis to win by +4.
Ricky Hardcastle picked up 3rd with a +17 victory over Raphael Reeves.
Men’s C
Bora Molla was seeded at #1 in the Men’s C and began with a +6 win over Josh Loyd. Next he faced Christophe Firth, who defeated Thomas Chen +17 in the opening round. Christophe proved too strong in the middle two sports, beating Bora by +7 and move into the final.
Number #2 seed Mark Brown started strongly with victories over Stephen Lloyd and then Gael Guetard – who had beaten Adam Turner in the first round.
In the final, the match was neck and neck after the opening 2 sports. Christophe taking the TT 21-5 before Mark reversed this in the badminton. In the squash it was Christophe who built a +10 lead going into tennis, before easily reaching the 12 required in tennis to take the title.
Bora Molla took 3rd after a fantastic playoff against Gael Guetard, winning by just one single point!
Men’s D
Number # 1 seed Phil Pinto begins his quest for a first UK Racketlon tour title with a +6 win against fellow GB +65 team mate, Ray Ryan. Unfortunately for Phil, he couldn’t get past Rob Gibby who eased into the final by +10.
Number #2 seed Chris Gibby fell at the first hurdle to James Bridge, however James was then defeated in the semi final, +18 by Roger Smith.
In the final, Rob Gibby took the TT 22-20, before Roger fired back by winning the badminton 21-6. The match took another turn in the squash as Rob pulled out a clinical 21-4 victory, but Roger was not to be denied. An accomplished tennis player, Roger powered to a 21-5 win to take home the title.
James Bridge took 3rd with a +8 win over Phil Pinto.
Junior U14’s
In the U14’s Cameron Firth was the strong favourite, following on from his impressive victory at the Surrey Classic, back in September. He started strong with a +16 win over Sam Sturmer, whilst Edward Baker edged past Peter Posposil by +5. The two winners then met in the match which was likely to decide the tournament winner, with Edward winning by large margins in badminton and tennis to take the match by +16.
Edward confirmed the title with a win against Sam Sturmer, whilst Cameron wrapped up 2nd with some great badminton and tennis against Peter Pospisil, who finished in 3rd place.
Full results can be viewed on tournament software.
Thanks to George Roberts, for not only running yet another fantastic tournament, but also stepping up into the A category and putting in some great performances. Thanks as well to Letchworth Sports and Tennis Club for the use of their excellent facilities.
We hope to see as many of you as possible at our final UK open tournament of the year, the Robin Hood Classic in Nottingham on December 1st! This will also be held in conjunction with the 2024 Super Series Finals, however this is not open to entries and qualifiers have already been contacted.
Happy Racketloning!
