The Jesmond Dene Cup 2009

After changing the date to May a few years ago we have had difficulty attracting a satisfactory number of guests for our premier invitation event. This year the numbers dwindled even further to one faithful visitor, Simon Barker. Next year we will change the date to the weekend of February 20^th. I can almost hear the stampede of entries!

Simon Barker played his group matches on Friday evening and had little competition from some of our good club players and moved into the semi-finals to face John Duns, our club champion.

In the other group Michael Raven & Brandon Gilhooley were the favourites but Brandon, after 4 hours of squash coaching in the morning (he’s the coach) didn’t have enough energy to put up a proper fight.

In the semis Simon won quite easily against our out of form club champion. Michael came up against the Jesmond pro, Paul Hetherington, in the only competition he is allowed to play and Paul was too strong.

So, the reigning champion against the improving new pro! Paul demonstrated that he had improved during his 11 month tenure and managed to stretch Simon in the first set although he lost it 6-4. The second set was close and it was evident to all that whoever had the serve had the greatest advantage. At 4-4 Paul couldn’t buy a chase and Simon duly won the next two games.

Is there anyone out there who can beat Barker at Jesmond? Feb 20^th 2010.