Squash tournament a smashing success

GRAAFF-REINET NEWS — Over the past weekend, the Graaff-Reinet Squash Club hosted its fifth Annual Karoo-lus Squash Doubles Tournament.

This tournament was played on a time format, with 20 minutes allocated for each match.

This format involves a four-minute warm-up period, followed by sixteen minutes of play. At the end of each match, the winning team is awarded two points, with one point per team in the event of a draw. At the end of the tournament, the pair with the most points wins, but should there be a tie, then the total number of points scored in the individual matches will be used as a tie-breaker.

Thus, players should aim to score as many points as they can in each match.

There were 24 doubles teams this year, with ten teams from East London, five teams from East London, five teams from Graaff-Reinet, three mixed teams, a team from Oudtshoorn and a team from Grootfontein Agricultural College in Middelburg.

With two sections, the competition was very tough and each team played three matches on Friday, six on Saturday and two on Sunday. The A-Section was particularly competitive and the winners were decided in the final match of the weekend where the defending champions from Port Elizabeth, who had won for the last three years, were ousted by a brilliant pair of youngsters from Grootfontein.

The tournament closed on Sunday and was followed by prize-giving and a braai hosted by the Graaff-Reinet Squash Club.

Peter Allam, Chairperson of Border Squash was extremely impressed with the Karoo-lus Tournament and stated that he would be providing feedback to SA Squash about the quality of the tournament and the work being done by the Graaff-Reinet Squash Club. This was a huge accolade for the club and the tournament organisers.

There were fantastic prizes for the winners and runners-up in each section and a host of lucky draw prizes. Nobody went home empty-handed. Goodie bags were also provided to each player on arrival with embroidered laundry bags and various other fun items.

A-Section Winners, Bruwer van der Walt and John Kuhn and B-Sections Winners, Chris Solomon and Bernard Webber were given hampers from Camdeboo Meat and A-Section Runners-Up, Emil Jordaan and Ronnie Leo and B-Section Runners-Up, Rodney Mare and Samantha Graham received petrol vouchers from Dippies Motors.

Other sponsors of prizes were Montego Pet Nutrition, Aaqtansisi Guesthouse, Heather's B&B and Die Smous.

The tournament was a great success and players are already booking their places for next year.