Vicky Coll and Reece Chamdal kept up their sparkling summer form at Southampton on Saturday, 15th June in the Waterside Junior Open. Reece won his Under 11 Boys’ group, including a fine 3-0 victory over Jason Roberts (Wales), who just collapsed. He went on to defeat Jamie Blair (Dorset) 3-0 in the semi-final. The higher ranked Kai Ghazi-Timms (Middlesex) also breezed through to the final, which lived up to expectation, with Kai enjoying some outrageous luck to take the first game 11-9 and then forging ahead more decisively in the 2nd; Reece held his nerve together wonderfully well to edge the 3rd 16-14, then took the 4th 11-6. Alas, Kai started the decider brightly, and Reece fell away, serving off three times in losing 4-11.
We were pleased to see Josh Selby back in action in the Under 13 Boys’ event after his recent illness. In a field of 28 he won his initial group, recovering from two games down and 2-5 down at the change-over in the 5th to beat the highly ranked defender Sam Wilson (Bucks). Josh won three more matches, as the group system continued, scoring an impressive victory over Theo Achampong (Middlesex), but losses to Vincent Cheung (Hants) and Ben Naylor-Smith (Bucks) left him in 7th place overall. This was a fine performance by Josh, who kept up his effort and motivation throughout the day. He is a very stylish player.
Vicky continues to make delightful progress, giving an object lesson in calm concentration, while making her way up the National Under 13 Girls’ rankings. On this occasion she won 7 of her 8 round-robin matches, losing only to Shristi Ghosh (Bucks) 4-11, 8-11, 9-11, but taking the silver medal and runner-up trophy by beating Gracie Edwards (Essex), who is ranked 18 places above her at no 16. This is Vicky’s second win in recent weeks over a top 16 player and she is bidding fair to gain a place in the top 20, when the provisional rankings for next season are issued in August.
