The Wiltshire Closed Championships took place at South Marston Hotel, Swindon on the 24th and 25th of January; and as always produced some sparkling squash; high intensity good quality matches all the way through.    The pick of the first round matches being Calli Smith the youngest player at 15 against Tony Hunt; Calli played exceptionally well completely dominating from start to finish; a little blip when he lost the 3rd game but winning through in 4.  The other match was against a teenager Josh Watkins taking on the tallest player in the tournament; Mark McGuiness from Trowbridge; two very close games 12/10 to Josh then 11/9 to Mark; Josh starting to take control and winning the 3rd and 4th to 6 points each.  The toughest match of this round was Paul Maddison taking on Dave Burns; a real battle with Paul coming from 2/1 down to win 3/2; a mammoth match.

The second round was all straightforward with the higher ranked players all winning with the exception of a real battle with Darren Healey coming from 2/1 down against Nev Buckle to completely dominate and win the 3rd and 4th games easily to win through.

On to the quarter finals and this is where the quality of squash really started to go up; Adam Giles (the number 1 seed) having a tough 1st game against Simon Lucas winning to 9; but then winning the next 2 comfortably.  The exertions of the 3/2 win showing with Darran Healey against Julian Beckett; Julian Beckett covering the whole court and beating Darran 3/0.   Rizwan Khan the number 3 seed up against Nigel Rowe and Nigel was up against it.  Rizwan hits the ball cleaner and harder than anyone in Wiltshire; but Nigel is a real battler.  14/12 to Rizwan in the first game 11/1 in the second; but Nigel dug in and battled and nearly stole the third narrowly losing 11/9.  James Ryan took on Dave Ridgway in the last quarter final and won relatively comfortably 3/1.

The first semi final was a repeat of Julian and Adam's encounter the previous year where Adam demolished Julian; very different this year.  Adam took the first game, but Julian fought back in the second taking the ball early pushing it to the front and his short game was superb winning it 11/9.  After this Adam was always in control; Jules making a few mistakes Adam wining 11/6 and 11/6.  The 2nd and 3rd seeds James and Rizwan contested the other semi final and it was very tight; James was unfortunate not to at least win a game losing 11/9, 13/11 and 11/8…

There were two plate tournaments.  The 1st Round Losers Plate semi-finals saw Mark McGuinness play Tony Claydon who ran out a comfortable winner and Dave Burns beat Tony Hunt.  A bit one sided in the final Mark winning comfortably 3/0 11/4, 11/4 and 11/5.   In the 2nd Round Losers Plate the quarter finals had the two teenagers facing each other and they produced a real quality match.  Great length shots and lots of hard hitting and Calli producing some great nicks.  1 game each with Josh starting to dominate and taking the next two games to win 3/1.  The semi finals had John Peirce against Nev Buckle and Josh against Tess Perry; John wss too strong for Nev winning 3/1; Josh, again in a great battle, winning a very closely contested match 3/1.  The final produced some great squash, but in the end, John too experienced and a little too strong winning 3/0 11/7, 11/7, 11/7.

The main final was superb; Adam v Rizwan; the final everyone wanted to see….Rizwan’s hitting and Adam’s retrieval were unbelievable producing some monster rallies.  Unfortunately for Rizwan, they all seemed to go in Adam’s favour, winning a very tight first game 11/9.  This continued in the second, Adam using his reach and covering the whole court to get some balls back, winning the second 11/8.  This seemed to deflate Rizwan and Adam went virtually straight through the 3rd game winning 11/3.  This makes it 3 championships in a row and his 4th overall.  A worthy champion…..