Cippenham Young Players’ Summer Festival (25-26.6.11)
The ever popular Cippenham Young Players’ Summer Festival, a 1-star open tournament played over two days, attracted another bumper entry of nearly 200 over the weekend. The Saturday afternoon under-14 event was filled to capacity and very good entries were also received for the other three age group events.

Remarkably, the seven main events were won by seven different players although two players, Reece Placid and Bethany Wilson won trophies in two events.

The event began with the under-12 and under-14 events on Saturday. Players from Middlesex, who eventually bagged four of the titles between them, secured the first two in the morning’s under-12 events. All the top four seeds in the Boys’ Singles made it through their preliminary round group without mishap but the number three, James Smith, and number four, Cippenham’s own Sam Wilson, were eliminated in the first round proper by Ethan Walsh and Jordan Ingles respectively. Walsh progressed a further round into the semi-final but Ingles fell in the quarters to James Corner. Meanwhile the top two seeds progressed comfortably into the final where top seed Omar Khassal beat Edward Haskell in three straight games.

The Under-12 Girls’ Singles was played as a round robin of eight players with the eventual winner being Denise Payet with Kate Cheer runner-up.

In the afternoon the Under-14 Boys’ Singles provided great entertainment and a superb display from Bournemouth’s Jamie Trevillion. Trevillion, who has recently adapted his style to play with long pimples on the backhand, caused his first upset by beating seventh seed Alex Nagle in the groups. Cippenham’s Nagle then went on to win the consolation event while Trevillion beat George Haskell to reach the quarter-final where he then dumped top seed Charlie Austen out 3-0. That was as far as he got, though, as despite taking the first game he was eventually outgunned by fourth seed Jack Josephs in the semi-final. Josephs went on to win a thrilling final against second seed Gabriel Achampong 16-14 in the deciding game. Prior to that, Achampong’s form had see-sawed between a tight 5-game win over Finn Morgan-Bayliss in the quarter-final to a most emphatic 11-1, 11-4, 11-3 win over James Smith in the semi.

Another round robin, this time of seven players, was contested for the Under-14 Girls’ Singles. Two girls finished with five wins each and it was Evie Foster’s 3-1 win in her final match against Bethany Wilson that secured her the title and pushed the previously unbeaten Wilson into second place. Foster had earlier lost her second match to Hiba Feredj who finished with four wins but came only fourth due to her loss against Emma Sheen.

Reece Placid carried all before him in the Under-16 Boys’ Singles on Sunday morning. Not only did he not lose a single game in the entire event but in his eight matches he lost only 108 points, that’s an average of just 4.5 per game. Placid justified his top seeding by beating second seed Joseph Langham-Ferreira in the final. Langham-Ferreira was taken the distance in the preliminary group by Anthony Egan who lost only 11-9 in the fifth and deciding game. After that, though, he was rarely troubled but did drop the first game of his semi-final against Viktoras Burbulevicius. Placid’s opponent in the semi-final was Kevin Vandabona.

The Under-16 Girls’ Singles was another round robin and it was the Under-14 runner-up Bethany Wilson who emerged undefeated to take the title with Laura Burbuleviciute in second place. Wilson won the match between them 3-1 after dropping the first game.

A mixed event was run in the under-18 age group on Sunday afternoon. The top two seeds both made it through to the final. Second seed Reece Placid brought his morning form into the higher age event but did drop one game en route to the final. Top seed Tyla Anderson was made to battle more, though, none less than in the preliminary group where Liam Winder took the first two games. Anderson then dropped one game in each of his three knock-out rounds to reach the final. The first three games of the final all went to deuce with Placid coming out top in two of them. However, Anderson then turned the screw and won the fourth and fifth easily to take the title. The semi-finalists were Joseph Langham-Ferreira and Viktotas Burbulevicius.

The tournament was organised by Catherine Hayes and refereed by Steve Smith.

	Winner:	Runner-up:
U18 Singles	Tyla Anderson (Middx)	Reece Placid (Middx)
U16 Boys’ Singles	Reece Placid (Middx)	Joseph Langham-Ferreira Surrey)
U16 Girls’ Singles	Bethany Wilson (Devon)	Laura Burbuleviciute (Essex)
U14 Boys’ Singles	Jack Josephs (Herts)	Garbriel Achampong (Middx)
U14 Girls’ Singles	Evie Foster (Kent)	Bethany Wilson (Devon)
U12 Boys’ Singles	Omar Khassal (Middx)	Edward Haskell (Devon)
U12 Girls’ Singles	Denise Payet (Middx)	Kate Cheer (Sussex)
U18 Consolation	Daniel Pound (Sussex)	Steven Vasiliou Middx)
U16 Boys’ Consolation	Michell Jones (Middx)	Oliver Hack (Herts)
U14 Boys’ Consolation	Alex Nagle (Bucks)	Zachary Bull Middx)
U12 Boys’ Consolation	Ben Foster (Yorks)	Colliva Timur (Middx)

By Graham Triming