Last weekend the National Squash Championships, took place at Fitzwilliam LTC. The event was a great success with superb squash being played by Ireland’s top players. There were 5 sections played – Women’s A, Men’s A & B, Men’s Over 35 and Men’s Over 40.
With an entry of nearly 80 players there were over 160 individual matches played over Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.
In the women’s event three of Ireland’s silver medal winning team from the European Championships last May played – Madeline Perry as No. 1 seed, Laura Mylotte @ No. 2 and Ciara Moloney No. 3. The 4th member of that team Aisling Blake, the defending champion is injured with her back and unfortunately couldn’t defend her title.
This year for the first time the Nationals were Live Streamed on IRISH SQUASH TV. The matches that were streamed live will be available to view on demand here later this week.
In the women’s final Madeline Perry as No. 1 seed, played Laura Mylotte No. 2 in a hard fought final. In the final analysis Madeline’s pace and accuracy were World-class and just too much for Laura. There were many fine rallies in the match but in the end it went 3-0 to Madeline, 11-4, 11-3,11-5
The Men’s A finalists were defending champion Derek Ryan and Irish number 1, Arthur Gaskin – the same line up as last year. There were many superb rallies with great athleticism shown from both players. Arthur raced into a commanding lead in the first game and won it 11-2. He repeated this in the second game making practically no errors and won it again 11-2. In the third Gaskin went 6-3 up but Ryan brought it back to 7 all and pushed it outo 9-7. Ryan won the 3rd 11-7 to take it to a 4th game. With both players tiring the younger Gaskin took a 6-1 lead, then 7-1 and went on to close it out 11-3 to win his 2nd Senior National title.
MEN
A. Gaskin bt D. Ryan 3-1 (11-2, 11-2, 7-11, 11-3)
WOMEN
M. Perry bt L. Mylotte 3-0 – (11-4, 11-3, 11-5)
[nggallery id=36]
