In our Under-15 2* Tournament yesterday we had a big departure from our normal format. After receiving a strong entry from seven girls, we decided to organize a separate girls’ event for the first time.
This required careful preparation and planning, and I am extremely grateful to Linda Radford for her sensible suggestions and solid support. Our solution was to have a larger than normal group for the girls who played against each other in the morning and this was followed by semi-finals and a final for the girls who finished in the top four.
Meanwhile, we limited the boys’ participation to 42 who, as usual, played in groups of six, followed by three knockout bands.
As the morning progressed it became clear that our planning had worked and we were on track to complete the tournament at the usual time, but with four simultaneous finals instead of the normal three.
All the players we were expecting arrived quickly and we are very grateful to the parents for making this happen, with many of them traveling a considerable distance.
This time we had an exceptionally strong entry. As well as five of the seven girls being in the top 32, we also had five boys in the top 20 and eight in the top 50 cadets in England. But as usual we also had a good spread of other participants, including some who had much less experience of tournament play.
We fully expected the girls event to be closely contested. The second and fifth seeded players were separated by just 16 ranking points. Our expectations were fully met. Spectacular play and close finishes were the order of the day.
Ultimately, the top four seeded girls reached the semi-finals, but fifth seed Adhuna Das (Britannia) was desperately unlucky not to make the cut. Not only did she beat fourth seed Shreya Popat (South Croydon) in the group, Adhuna also had very close matches with all the other top seeds, ultimately losing only on countbacks.
Shreya took inspiration from her shaky start against Adhuna and steadily gained confidence as the competition progressed. In the semi-final Shreya defeated Gaia Wong (Ellenborough) 3-2 (8-11, 12-10, 9-11, 11-2, 14-12) and in the final she defeated Grace Liu 3-2 (11-8, 12-14, 3-11, 11-8, 11-9). Shreya looked remarkably composed after playing 31 matches during the day and was a worthy winner.
In the other semi-final, Grace narrowly defeated top seed Bethany Yang (Ellenborough) 3-1 (11-6, 11-6, 9-11, 12-10). We were very pleased to be able to organize the separate girls’ event and decided to increase the prize money so that the girls’ prizes would be the same as our usual Band 1.
The boys’ tournament went pretty much as expected, with top seed Oscar Nikolli (eBaTT) beating second seed Sinan Surensoy (Woodford Wells) 3-0 (12-10, 11-9, 11-5) in the Band 1 final.
Our Band 2 winner was Ishaan Sethi (Woodford Wells) who defeated Vihaan Thakur (Kingfisher) 3-0 (11-8, 11-7, 11-8). The winner of Band 3 was James Katz (Urban) who defeated Harry Speller (Thanet Vikings) 3-0 (11-6, 11-4, 11-4).
One of the most satisfying features of these tournaments is the attendance of players who are new to competitions. Yesterday we saw Dilan Patel (Ellenborough) reach the Band 3 semi-finals in his first open tournament, gaining his first national ranking points. Among other notable achievements, we congratulate the following players who defeated higher ranked players in their groups. As a result, Milan Saujani (Hillingdon) and Louis Aguirré (Ellenborough) reached Band 1. Onela Sapumanage (KG), Daniel Delgado (Kingfisher) and Flynn Kemp (Maidstone) also reached Band 2.
We are very grateful to others who helped us run this tournament smoothly: our super team of officials: Linda Radford, Amanda Alabaster, Derek Balding, Sarah March, Mary Nicholls, Debbie O’Neill and Lin Roff. Plus, as always, great support from BATTS fanatics Neil Brierley and Sharon Head.
We are now looking forward to our next junior events at BATTS. The Under-13 2* on Sunday February 15 is full, but if you register quickly you can get a high place on the reserve list. Then on Sunday, May 3, registrations will be steadily coming in for Under-15 2*.
We will be holding our first Girls-Only tournament on Sunday, July 5 (registration forms will be released in February). Unfortunately our plan for an Under-17 was thwarted in March, but we will look for new dates after the summer.
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