Successful Gloucestershire Junior Squash Open takes place across four county venues

by Julian Wellings | 29 January 2025 | competition, juniors, national, squash, tournaments

By Mark Toseland, East Glos Squash Manager

The Gloucestershire Silver Junior Squash Open took place over the weekend of 24th to 26th January 2025 and what a weekend it was! A lot of planning took place in the background to get this show on the road.

It started in June 2024 with an application to see if we were eligible to host the event. Once given the go-ahead, there was a lot more logistical consideration. Four venues were required to accommodate the 276 entries, with players coming from as far as Northumberland, Guernsey and Kent. Many thanks to Wycliffe College, Cheltenham College and Old Pats for supporting us in hosting such a large junior competition. This was probably my biggest event for me to date, with the management of four venues providing its challenges including training and allocating the tournament organisers and bringing together many volunteers.

The event was allocated as an England Squash selection event for the U13s, U15s, and U19s categories. This saw the best players in the country competing in those age categories, aiming to impress the England Squash National Coaches who were present and gaining valuable Team England selection points in a bid to represent England in the Five Nations in April and European events later in the calendar.

The semi-finals and finals were hosted at East Glos, with the highlight of the evening being Ali Khalil vs Matthew Leung in the Bu17 final. This was a repeat of the Bu15 British Junior Championships final in November. Both players, who are only 14 years old, were competing up an age group.

Ali Khalil, the number 1 seed, made his seeding into the final against East Glos Junior Maverick, Matthew, who was unseeded in the U17s and had to make his way through qualifying. Matthew then took out the 5/8, 9/16 number 2 and the 3/4 seeds to set up his meeting with Ali Khalil for a monumental display of the world’s best U15 players.

We also had plenty of juniors from East Glos and Gloucestershire participating in this event. A notable mention goes to Sam Terrell, who finished in a personal best of eleventh overall in the Bu15 and saw his training efforts pay off on court.

Ben and Tom Rolfe (U13), Martyn Coombs, and Will O’Connor (Bu15) took their first steps onto the silver tournament standard scene.  Congratulations to all the East Glos Junior Mavericks who took part and played their best on home soil. It was great to have you all involved and seeing what it takes to play at the next level, but also inspiring more of our juniors who came along to watch you play.

Thanks also to the following: 

• Our tournament organisation team of Joe Tyler, Lily Stanton and Sam Hartley for keeping all the venues running smoothly throughout the weekend. Sam stepped in for an ill Noel Lee at the last minute.
• The England Squash referees who kept matches flowing.
• Henry Johnson for all his hard work setting up the live stream on YouTube. He also manually added the score for every finals match. This added to the viewing experience for those watching. See Henry’s efforts on the live stream here. 
• The staff at all venues who made every participant feel welcome and provided an excellent quality service.
• The volunteers who helped keep the event running smoothly on behalf of the tournament organisers.
• A special mention to Sergio Tomasetto and his daughter Rebekah Kerr-Tomasetto for helping enormously over the weekend. They got stuck in helping players with their t-shirt size selection, running back and forth with marking sheets, and keeping an eye on the courts. They also helped keep me sane the entire time, bringing a smile to my face, even when things were getting tough.

We’ve had plenty of positive feedback from parents, coaches, and players, saying that East Glos is one of the best venues they’ve been to. They also liked that the venues were all so close to each other, making the event run more smoothly. They said the quality of the venues was higher than average compared to other national events and that we’re lucky to have what we have available to run such events.

The t-shirts also went down well. Thank you to our event sponsor, Nick Griffith Estate Agents, for providing the financial support to run this event. I look forward to seeing how many juniors will be wearing the event t-shirts over the coming weekends at other national standard events.

East Glos Junior Mavericks finishing positions overall:

• Bu13: Daniel Stevenson – 9th; Tom Rolfe – 28th; Ben Rolfe – 31st.
• Bu15: Sam Terrell – 11th; Martyn Coombs – 44th; Will O’Connor – 47th.
• Bu17: Matthew Leung – runner-up.
• Gu17: Rosa Gray – 6th.
• Gu19: Freya Henry – 12th.

A final thank you to Cheltenham College, Wycliffe College, and Old Pats for allowing us to host such a great event and to all their staff who made it run as smoothly as it did.

• Event sponsor: Nick Griffith Estate Agents
• Prize sponsor: Karakal
• England Squash Referees: Stan, Luke, Danny & Mick
• Venue tournament organisers: East Glos – Mark Toseland; Wycliffe – Joe Tyler; Cheltenham College – Sam Hartley; Old Pats – Lily Stanton

Volunteers

• East Glos & Cheltenham College: Sergio Tomasetto; Rebekah Kerr-Tomasetto; Tony Briscombe; Artem Sahaidakov; Mari Tsukihiji; Julian Rolfe; Ben Heuze; Ross Sipek; Matt Terrell; Brett Stevenson; Fiona Geaves; Andy Salter; Tayne Turnock; Adam Engelbretch; Aiden Metcalf 
• Old Pats: Rob Kingscott; Claire Sumner; James Hession; Dan Heaton; Owain Fullerton; Joel Payne; Huw Fullerton
• Wycliffe: Jonny Harford; Alex Parker; Nathan Mead; Craig Webb; Rob Wilson; Tony Richmond

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