Over 40 Open Singles & Doubles/ Over 50 Open Singles & Doubles/ Over 60 Open Doubles Championships 2010
Oct 01, 2010 - Oct 03, 2010 Queens P Maxwell
Sponsored by Neptune
The winner of the Over 40s Singles played in March 2010, Patrick Maxwell, volunteered to take on the mantle of organising this competitive, fun weekend and received a lot of support for an early season slot in the calendar. He also persuaded some big names in the game, such as former World Champions James Male and Willie Boone, to participate, and introduced an over 50s Singles event to swell the competitions to 5 Over 40s Singes and Doubles, Over 50s Singles and Doubles and Over 60s Doubles. Neptune agreed most generously to sponsor the events and at one stage it was hoped that another former World Champion, Neil Smith might come over from the States to play in the over 40s events.
In the Over 40s Singles the 2009 winner, William Maltby, put up a strong performance against James Male, losing 12/15 10/15. Patrick Maxell took Steve Tulley to the final game with a determined performance but lost that 8/15. So the semi finals line up was David Makey vs James Male and Steve Tulley vs Rupert Owen-Browne. Rupert's pace was a bit more than Steve cold cope with, but David Makey did excellently to come back from a terrible second game against James Male, which James won playing some fine winners. David was hobbling with thigh cramps at the end of this 15/1 game, (having taken the first by 15/7), so to win the final game 15/10 was a splendid performance even if James has had no match practice. So an all Tonbridge final, School Pro vs School Old Boy was in prospect for the gallery on Sunday morning.
In the over 40s Doubles the two of them, David and Rupert had reached the final with a win over Simon Kverndal and Ged Parsons. In the other semi James Male and Patrick Maxwell battled back from a game down to Steve Tulley and Howard Angus to win the close second and third games. So a final of Owen-Browne/Makey vs Male/Maxwell was in store for Sunday morning.
In the new event Over 50s Singles, the semi-final line up was Boone vs Angus and Maltby vs Tulley after these four had won their ¼ finals comfortably. Boone had no difficulty in serving past Queen's home Pro, the only player entered for all 5 events, even though the Over 50s and Over 60s events were on the one serve only basis (that applies to all levels of Rackets in North America).
Steve Tulley and William Maltby however, had a splendid match, with William winning the first game 15/3, Steve taking the second 15/8 and William serving 2 match points at 14/9 and 14/10, before Steve got home 15/12.
Very sadly the 2 Over 40s Finals had to be abandoned due to Rupert Owen-Browne having to pull out with a severe back strain which required a visit to A&E on Saturday night. SO David Makey took the Over 40 and James Male/Patrick Maxwell became the Over 40s Doubles Champions by virtue of walk-overs.
The Boone/Tulley Over 50s final therefore became the Sunday morning show case for the gallery supporters. This match was surprisingly easy for Steve, who won 15/8 15/7, largely sue to the quality of the slower, heavily cut serves he delivered, which Willie found really hard to attack. Willie on the other hand, hit very few of his trademark hammer serves which he deployed to such good effort in his semi-final win an hour earlier. Any win against the redoubtable Willie in these age-group events is soothing of note, and taming Willies' power as Steve did so effectively was a fine display by the St Pauls Pro who used guileful lower pace admirably, allied to all the experience of years of playing one service when he was a Pro in Montreal.
The Over 50s and 60s Doubles finals were both rather one sided, Tulley and Angus being too steady for William Maltby and Peter Mallinson in the Over 50s and Willie Boone and Aiden MacEchern experienced little resistance to Willies' power from David Watkins and Howard Angus in this first outing for Willie on the Over 60s rank.
The trophies were pretended by the new Chairman of the T&RA, William Maltby, and warm thanks were presented to Neptune for their splendid support for the weekend, to Patrick Maxwell for all his crucial, galvanising work in creating a new impetus for the Masters Weekend which will be ongoing, to Howard Angus for all his help with the draws and marking and to Aggie Hudson-Evans from the T&RA for all her efficient and cheerful organisation from Centenary House on entries, draws, timings and prizes.