Innaugural Victorian Closed & Youth Championships

The newest major event on the Squash Vic claendar had its debut last weekend at MSAC with around 50 players participating across 10 different divisions.

The VCYC has something for everyone of all different abilities, from Championship to Novice. This event aims to have a place for anyone to be able to participate regardless of their ability. The new Novice division had a great response with 5 players, some of whom were competitng for the very first time. It's not just new divisions, but how those divisions work. The Championship division aims to give players a bit of a PSA experience, the the tin's lowered to 17". The Under 23's gives young players another form of competition as a bridge between juniors & seniors and the Novice division played PAR 15 Best of 3 and used the Progress (Red dot ball). "The goal is to make this event the biggest non-professional tournament in Victoria" - Tounament Director David Cowell.

Special shoutout to our sponsors:
Mountain District Squash Club
Joe Thymianidis
The Racquet Shop

And to Matt Anderson from Melbourne Streaming and Videography for capturing the event all weekend..

The Championship divisions gave us some really high quality squash in both the Men's and Women's events. Especially in the finals with Sarah Cardwell v Whitney Yeung and Ben Ratcliffe v Tate Norris. The Men's final took it all the way to a 5th in another epic battle between these two.

Results:
S. Cardwell d W. Yeung 3-0 11/6 11/9 12/10
T. Norrs d B. Ratcliffe 3-2 9/11 11/4 8/11 11/3 11/7

With these results, Sarah and Tate became the first Victorian Champions and the recipients of the "Margaret Zachariah OAM Victorian Women's Champion" and the "Tom Spark OAM Victorian Men's Champion" Trophies.

     

Next was the innagural Youth Champions. Victoria has some excellent young players competitng and this was a great opportunity to see it in action. Sakhi Tareen & Kreethi Pillay and Tina Ma & Darcie Blaber faced off in the Under 23's finals.

Results:
S. Tareen d K. Pillay 3-1 11/6 11/5 8/11 11/4
T. Ma d D. Blaber 3-0 11/7 11/2 11/4

Other divisional results are: