Comberton successes at the 2007 Brian Fielding Grand Prix

There were some outstanding performances from Comberton’s junior players in the Grand Prix held at the St Ivo Outdoor Centre on December 9th.

This competition is in memory of Brian Fielding who was an outstanding county junior coach and did so much to encourage youngsters to take up and progress at squash over many years.

We had three representatives in Group A (for the younger and less experienced players) – and they all played superbly! All three had only started playing squash this term, whereas many of their opponents had been playing for two years or more, but our trio competed with such determination and skill that they ended up in the top half of the final placings after four rounds of tough matches. Alex Gooding finished a very good sixth, Alban Fernandez came third and Sam Bradshaw won the Brian Fielding silver trophy and a Boots £10 token when he completed his fourth 3-0 victory in a row!

In Group B we had seven players out of a total of fifteen competitors, so there were quite a few all-Comberton matches spread through the tournament! In the end our highest-ranked player was Tom Symmons, who came third, with Ollie Thorne in fifth place. There were some particularly encouraging performances from our youngest players in this group, Will Collett (11th place) and Marcus Connolly (12th place), who at 12 years old were at least two years younger than any other players in Group B (apart from Tom Symmons), yet still competed very impressively (including against each other in their final match!). Credit also goes to Amy Lamb (15th place), Sam Prime (14th place), and Peter Tasker (9th place) who fought well throughout the competition.

Ray Scrivens