Alex Adams-Wright overcomes his fear of a reknowned opponent to take home the prize

On 13th December Racquets Fitness Centre held another one-day junior squash tournament for the juniors playing squash in and around Thame. 

Playing in his first tournament, Alex Adams-Wright showed fantastic spirit taking on players with much more experience.

15 year old Alex, from Princes Risborough school, won through the round robin stage against 3 other regular and talented players and then went on to play our under 11 nationally ranked talent, 8 year old, Ollie Coulcher-Porter.  Alex found that strength was a great help in this particular final and applied plenty of the new squash techniques from recent coaching to win through.

Alex’s coach, Sue Martin-Downhill, said ‘Alex has made great progress in his squash over the past 2 months and despite being partially sighted Alex finds that this is a sport that he can really enjoy.  His understanding of the game has improved such that he is able to compete against players who have been playing for much longer.”

The tournament was attended by 16 players, one who travelled from Sonning Common to join in.  Luca Babb, who plays at Henley Squash Club, joined in with Roger’s Saturday morning squash coaching group and then followed that by winning the top grade. Although he won his matches in straight games each of the games were very close.

All the players were extremely helpful throughout the tournament, all the matches were refereed by one of the other players with a few learning how to mark during the day.  Learning how to mark is very good for helping children take charge of situations.

In the beginners grade Matthew Harper and Fionn Leaney had an exciting close game. Matthew just came through 3-2.  Fionn started playing squash 6 weeks ago and appears to be naturally talented with amazing hand to eye co-ordination.  Matt, who has been playing a little longer, is a dedicated player who has shown that practice can really make a serious difference. Matt’s hand-eye co-ordination is now excellent and his coaches, Roger Ridler and Sue Martin-Downhill, are looking forward to watching Matt to grow into an exceptional player and to compete in more tournaments in the future.