Andy Dibben writes:
The fears that, after a very dry March, the rains would come in anger over Easter and the Surbiton Handicap would have to be cancelled for a second year were unfounded. 25 players enjoyed 2 days of sunshine on dry courts that were running at a very respectable 10.4 seconds for this early in the season.
As usual, the event was run as a very flexible Swiss, which meant that each player could play as much or as little as they liked. This format enabled some players who wanted to leave early to get through only 4 games whilst Stephen Harbron managed to get in 8 during the weekend.
By lunchtime on Saturday, Sean Doherty (from Ealing) was the only undefeated player on 6 wins out of 6 whilst the next group pf players were on 4 wins out of 5. This made the managers life easy as even if Sean lost his last game and players on 4 out of 5 won Sean would still have a higher overall win %.
This turned out to be the case with Sean finishing on 6 wins from 7 and a handicap reduction from 9 to 8. Tony Elliot came second with 5 wins from 6 with Joel Taylor & Simon Tuke third with 5 wins from 7 games.
Thanks to George Noble for providing excellent lunches on both days. The higher handicap players were also inspired to greater things by the sight of Reg Bamford practicing on the spare court constantly hitting the peg from the boundary with or without his new fancy swing-trainer.
| Updated 22.iv.25 |
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