01 Feb 2016
Luton, 1 February 2016. The first tournament of the squash winter camp in England concluded on Sunday, January 31 with Aspire Academy’s players tasting success in their respective events. As an England Squash sanctioned bronze level event the ‘Bedfordshire Junior Open’ attracted a field of county representative players from the London area.
Aspire graduate student Umair Zaman and foundation year’s Yousef Elsaka were both victorious in the Under 19 category and Under 13 event respectively. These finals played out in contrasting styles; Umair was quite dominant in his final match winning 3-0, whereas Yousef was forced to come back from two games down to eventually prevail 3-2. For Umair this was the perfect lead in to next weekend’s sliver ranking event while for Yousef it was his first tournament victory outside Qatar and a just reward for his efforts in each match over the course of the event.
In the Under 15 age group Waleed Zaman and Rashid Al-Harib managed top 3 finishes after both being edged out by number 1 seed Joe Dawson in the semi-final and final. Though they had chances their higher seeded English opponent was slightly more consistent at crucial times on his way to victory in the event.
Half of the group now return to Doha whilst four boys stay in England to prepare for a second tournament this coming weekend. This event held in Lee on Solent sees the best junior players from across the country taking part and should be a great opportunity for the Aspire team.
Results for all students are listed below while full details can be found on the website: www.ldsquash.com
| NAME |
CATEGORY |
PLAYED |
WON |
FINAL POSITION |
| UMAIR ZAMAN |
U19 |
4 |
4 |
1st |
| ABDELAZIZ OMEIRA |
U19 |
4 |
2 |
6th |
| WALEED ZAMAN |
U15 |
4 |
3 |
2nd |
| RASHID AL-HARIB |
U15 |
4 |
1 |
3rd |
| AHMAD AL-MERAIKHI |
U15 |
2 |
1 |
9th |
| YOUSEF ELSAKA |
U13 |
3 |
3 |
1st |
| IBRAHIM AL-DARWISH |
U13 |
4 |
2 |
7th |