Lawerence Skurr won the Villa Maria squash rackets tournament at Sumner yesterday after an enthralling five-game match against Canterbury’s top junior, Rod Hayes. Skurr survived four match points in the fifth fames and he himself had four chances before taking the match 10-9 after Hayes has hit out of court. Miss Roslyn Stanton made no race of the women’s final against Mrs Jill Bruce as she drove ruthlessly to the corners and finished off many rallies with firm angle shots.
TOO FIT
Another junior representative Paul McFadzien, convincing took the B grade title, proving too fit and consistent for Ryan McCutcheon, who had been seeded first for the event. The Men’s A Grade final started at an extremely fast pace with Hayes maintaining his outstanding form of the earlier rounds. He kept Skurr on the move with hard drives and strong volleying.
DROP SHOTS
Skurr was unable to get up front to play drop shots and Hayes took the first game comfortably. Hayes went on to lead 7-5 in the second game before his accuracy dropped off, allowing Skurr to take more of the offensive role. Skurr took the second game 10-8, and then took the third 9-4, but made very hard work of the points that he won in the middle part of this game, as he made many seemingly casual returns down the backhand wall. Hayes looked rather despondent in the fourth games as Skurr ran quickly to 4-0 but rallied with some remarkably accurate angle shots to take the game 9-5. Then it was Skurr’s turn to overhaul Hayes, as from 2-5 down in the final game, he went to 6-5. After superb angles, and two errors from Skurr, Hayes had his first match point at 8-6 but Skurrkept play tight and from errors by Hayes plus a fine drop shot under pressure, finally ran out the winner 10-9. Throughout the standard of retrieving was outstanding particularly some of Skurr’s recoveries of Haye’s angle shots and reverse boasts.
Results:-
Men’s championship – Lawrence Skurr beat Rod Hayes 4-9,10-8,9-4,5-9,10-9.
B grade – Paul McFadden beat Ryan McCutcheon 9-4,9-3,9-6.
C Grade – Paul Monk beat Brian Jones 9-1,9-10,6-9,9-1,9-0.
D Grade – Ken Bethwaite beat Craig Hibbert 10-8,1-9,1-9,10-9,9-5.
Women’s championship – Miss Roslyn Stanton beat Mrs Jill Bruce 9-1,9-0,9-5.
B Grade – Mrs Jenny McCutcheon beat Miss Sue Blance 9-7,8-10,10-9,9.0
