Sussex County Open Singles – 15 July

A beautiful day welcomed 32 players for the latest one-day singles competition. 11 entrants attended from clubs outside of SCCC, notably, Nelson Morrow who was over from New Zealand and Debbie and Steve Hayns from the Isle of Wight. Divisions A, B, D and E all had 6 players, each playing 5 games. Division C had 8 players, so was split into two groups of four playing 3 games in the morning, with play-offs in the afternoon to decide the overall winner.

The conditions were challenging: high temperatures, a moderate breeze, fast lawns and uncompromising hoops. It was decided, therefore, to limit games to 50 minutes, without which, I suspect, we would have been playing well into the evening.

Division A came down to a final game playoff between Brian Aikens and Konstantin Yudintsev, both of whom had won three of their first four games. Konstantin prevailed 5-3 to win the group, and elevating Simon Ancell into second on net hoops.

Division B was won convincingly by Richard Brooks, just to show the organiser that he should have been in Division A really! Paul Green had an excellent day, finishing second in a field of lower handicappers.

The Division C Final was contested by Mike Gentry and Beryl Hughes, both of whom had come through from Block C2. Mike had won all his games to this point, and the final went with form; Mike prevailing 7-5.

Division D was hard fought, with 1 win separating the top four players. In the end, Peter Hill came out on top, with Sue Nicholas in second.

Division E was equally tight, but Tony Majoram took the title, with David Larkin in second. Commiserations to Jim Mander who broke his mallet early on, providing him with yet another hurdle to overcome on the day.

Thank you to everybody who made it such a good natured and enjoyable day.

David

Thanks to David for managing the event