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Colets 1 -3 Rózsadombi
Alex Gough lost to Marcus
Berrett 5/9, 2/9, 3/9
Scott Handley lost to Joey Barrington 2/9, 7/9, 0/9
Mark Cairns bt Peter Genever 9/7, 9/5, 9/0
Danny Meddings lost Andras Torok 1/9, 7/9, 9/3, 9/4, 2/9 |
Hungarians take out Colets
Daniel Zilic on the semi-final
The Hungarian team of Rózsadombi Sport Egyesület reached the
finals of the competition after a strong performance against Colets
Health & Fitness.
Mark Cairns for Colets started on the glass court against Pete Genever
and was hitting a great length and using his very strong wrist, which
enabled him to get some shots back by Genever where any normal player
would barely play a boast.
Cairns mentioned that he was the luckier player today, with many funny
bounces and balls going his way, it was nevertheless a very impressive
win for the former English top ten player.
 On
the back court Andras Torok squandered a 2-0 lead before scraping a 3-2
win over Danny Meddings to square the match, while back on the glass
Marcus Berrett had little trouble with a tired looking Alex Gough and
wrapped the match up pretty quickly to put Rózsadombi ahead.
So it was all down to Scott Handley and Joey Barrington as to which team
would make it through to the finals. Scott needed to win the match for
Colets to have a chance of getting through, but Joey looked as
determined as ever right from the start.
The second game was by far the most intense game of the match with the
crowd really getting stuck in and both players really going for it.
Handley went from 0:3 to 5:3, which was mainly due to mixing his shots
up more and risking more playing to the front. Fortunately he lost this
very noisy game 9:7 and after that it was all over fairly quickly.
It will be interesting to see whether Rózsadombi field the same
team tomorrow, as they still have Gaultier as their number one player.
If they play him however, Torok slips to three and Szaboky plays at
four. Therefore I am pretty sure we will be seeing the same team
tomorrow.
Daniel Zilic |
Genever stopped by
Cairns
Berrett breezes past
Gough
Colets manager Dave Peck watches the match unfold
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Paderborn 4-0 Herlev/Hjorten
Peter Nicol bt Andrew Whipp
9/2, 9/2, 9/1
Tim Garner bt Mads Korsbjerg 9/3, 9/1, 9/1
Stefan Leifels bt Morten Sorensen 5/9, 9/0, 9/0, 9/3
Lars Osthoff bt Mikkel Kragholm 9/0, 9/2, 9/2 |
Paderborn Cruise
into Final
It was a fairly easy night for the
defending champions, much to the delight of a packed home crowd. More a
night for photos than words ...
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 "I
lost the first badly, but Peter [Nicol] gave me some good advice
during the interval, and I was able to pull it round.
"When I heard that Lars was leading that gave me a boost too.
"I don't really know the Hungarian team, haven't watched them play,
but I think we'd prefer to play them than to play Colets again -
although they must be dangerous to have beaten Colets ..."
Stefan Leifels
Paderborn |
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Women's Snippets
from
Daniel Zilic
 While
the two women's quarters (Bordeshelm and Pontefract had byes) were on
the glass court, the semi-finals were on the outside courts at the same
time as the men's, making coverage difficult. We'll have detailed
coverage of the women's final tomorrow ...
Semi-Finals:
Bordesholm 3-0 Odense
Annelize Naude bt Line Hansen
9/7, 9/4, 9/6
Katharina Witt bt Kira Petersen 9/2, 9/5, 9/4
Daniela Schumann bt Dagmar Fedderen 9/2, 9/0 ---
Pontefract 2-1 SAS Wien
Becky Botwright bt Pamela Pancis
0/9, 9/1, 9/5, 10/8
Lauren Siddall lost to Kathryn Rohrmuller 1/9, 10/8, 9/10, 1/9
Kirsty McPhee bt Birgit Coufal 9/6, 9/1, 9/1
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"Me and Annelieze normally have a good game. She is ranked about 15 and
I am 41, but nevertheless I quite like playing her. Today I was hoping
to get a game, oh well.
"The difference is that she is a far steadier player than me, I am very
up and down. Sometimes it is helpful to be like that, so you can like
really turn the match around, but quite often it works against you. SO
that is what I want to work on, not losing my head that often.
"So for this year I think I will do more training and not play that many
tournaments. I would like to get into the top 30 by the end of the
season so that is my ambition I am working towards to. As for the ECC
this is my sixth appearance in a row, I really like the tournament. Last
year we were awful finishing 8th, but this year we have done well and
will be playing the Austrian team for third place, so that is quite an
improvement!”
Line Hansen
Playing Odense, Katharina Witt of Bordesholm went on court with
Kira Petersen. Little did she know that Kira lives close to the
German border and went to a German school. SO Katharina talked to her in
English when spinning the racket, so you can imagine Katharina’s
startled face as Kira began speaking German to her. She wasn’t too
shocked however and won 3-0 pretty comfortably. |
"Well it is not the first time I played on the
glass court but it is always quite nice. My head was really hot because
of the lighting, but I survived. Catherine was rather difficult to play,
mainly because of her double-handed backhand. But it was only a dead
rubber and it was good to win.
"Pamela, Kathrin and I have been playing in this team together for about
three years. Me and Pam play together in the Austrian national team,
whereas I play for Kathrin’s team in Germany a couple of times a season,
so we are all pretty close.
"At the moment I studying media broadcast & popular Science at the
Uniersity of Wales Institute Cardiff (UWIC), where I am in my second
year. There is plenty of squash around there and I play for the men’s
and women’s league teams as well as for the women’s team at university
competitions. We actually won the BUSA team championships last year.
Living in Cardiff is great and I am enjoying every minute of it!"
Birgit
Coufal
In yesterday’s group matches Birgit coincidentally had to play one of
her colleagues from university. Dagmar Feddern, Odense’s number
three player, also studies at UWIC, she is in her third year however. It
turned out to be a real battle which Birgit won 3:2 in the end. As both
teams are in the semis there is a good possibility of Dagmar getting a
second shot tomorrow. |
Down to business in Paderborn ...
Day two started off with the final men's pool matches, and the top four
seeds all progressed safely to the semi-finals.
Razsadombi, Paderborn and Colets continued to steamroller the
opposition, all winning 4-0, while Herlev/Hjorten fought out a 2-2 draw
with Gothenburg which was enough to see them into the semi-finals, which
take place this evening.
In the women's competition, Edinburgh recorded their first win in the
7/9 playoffs, while two quarter-finals take place this afternoon to
determine who takes on the two favourites in tonight's semis ... details
of all that to follow. |
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Colets 4 Impuls 0
Daniel Zilic watches Colets & Paderborn
cruise into the semis
Despite the match not being of any
importance, Alex Gough’s match against young Dylan Bennett
of Holland was one of the best matches of the tournament so far and
finally saw one of the top 30 players being pushed out of his comfort
zone.
Dylan managed to win the first game despite being 6:8 down and never
gave up in any of the other games. At 1:1 it seemed for a moment as if
Alex was going to throw the match away as his team was leading 3:0
anyway, but the experienced Welshman came back from 5:1 down in the
third and seemed pretty keen to win in the end.
Alex said afterwards that he needed to be on court for a while to get
into the groove for this evening’s match against the Hungarian team.
All in all there was a lot of top-spin shots going on in this match and
some very good retrieving. Alex’s all court game paid its dividends in
the end and saw a tired Dylan by game four. It’ll be good to see how
Gough will fare against either Marcus Berrett or Gregory Gaultier in
today’s first semi-final. |
 "I
know the match was a dead rubber but I still went full out in it as
I wanted to use the opportunity to play a player of Alex’s calibre.
It is not easy to play Alex as he has some tricky top spin shots at
the front and really is not easy to read. It is the first time I
ever played him and he has just so much experience. I mean he has
been on the tour for like 15 years, whereas I am this young new
player.
"I have had a really good summer, I won in Hong Kong, qualified for
the Pakistan Open and playing in South America was also quite good.
In St. Louis I had six games balls playing LJ, but I just couldn’t
close the game. It isn’t that I have changed anything in my training
regime, it is just all falling into place at the moment. I have not
even trained properly for seven weeks, just playing matches and
tournaments.
"That is what I prefer to do anyway. I have regular hits with Tommy
and some guys from my team here. Last year we had Callum O’Brien of
New Zealand over here with us as well, fortunately things did not
work out this year. But for that we have Tommy at one. He is still
recovering from injury a bit so he is just playing one match a day,
against Paul Steel this evening."
Dylan Bennett |
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Paderborn 4 Newlands 0
 TO
finish off the one-sided match-up between Newlands of Scotland and hosts
Paderborn, Ben Garner took on Newland’s Hardian Stiff.
Hadrian demonstrated his great deception and great ball control at a
number of occasions, but it showed that his 25 year old opponent is
still hungry for victory and used to playing at a very high pace.
It was a good match but it was rather a question whether Hadrian would
be able to sneak a game or two rather than the entire match, especially
with traditional scoring. Hadrian came pretty close in game two after
hitting the softest of drop shots agonisingly into the tin at 7:8 down.
The third game was over in a moment, Garner wrapping things up 9:0 in
just a couple of minutes.
Ben Garner bt Hadrian Stiff
9/4, 9/7, 9/0
Tim Garner bt Mark Ford
9/5, 9/1, 9/0
Stefan Liefels bt Chris Small
9/0, 9/7, 9/7
Lucas Osthoff bt Barry Sutherland 9/4, 9/1, 9/0
 |
 "I
do not think I have played Stiffy before, although, maybe years and
years ago. He hasn’t played the tour in years so I think he
struggles playing at the pace, but he is still
"It was good to get on court and have a good work out as I think
Peter will be playing the semis this evening.
I have played on this court on several occasions, the last time at
the English Open. It is quite strange playing on the same court in
different locations, but you get used to it.
"These courts are so nice nowadays, it is a real pleasure to play on
them.
"My season started about a month ago in Australia, where I played a
10,000$ tournament. This year is a real decider for me, as I am no
junior anymore and need to produce some good results, lifting me
from the forties hopefully into the top 24.
"I will be playing the qualifying draws in most major tournaments,
but I will mix it up with some smaller ones. It is important to play
these tournaments to win some matches and get your confidence up."
Ben Garner |
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Another day has gone here in Paderborn, and for most of it means we are a
day closer to Saturday night. Word is quickly spreading that for three hours
tomorrow there will be free drinks for everyone, which explains the sudden
buzz around the squash club, some would put it down to Paderborn being in
the final in their home, but let me tell you, it is definitely down to the
nervous excitement at the prospect of vast amounts of alcohol to be consumed
tomorrow night, and free alcohol tastes that much better.
For me today started with a match against Gothenburg, which we thought would
be straight forward, and as ever we were wrong. They brought in Mikkel
Kjorsberg to play at number 1 to push everyone down a place. I went on court
at the match poised at 2-1 to the Swedes with us needing a draw to qualify
for the semi finals. The Danes could rely on trusty Andy Whipp (???) to pull
them through. I managed to keep my composure to win 3-0, so bring on Peter
Nicol next.
After killing 7 hours, our semi final really started, and not well, not well
at all. I honestly thought we had a chance of scraping through, what did I
say about us being wrong?! Our number 4 lost for four points and after a
good first game our number three lost too. Okay, I thought, all I have to do
is hope Mads beats Tim and for me to take out Pete Nic (on the court, not
with a rifle!). When watching Mads’ first game he shouted out to me: I’m too
tired!”, and this was one all in the first game – uh oh, a slight problem.
Right, down to me to salvage some ignity, the only problem was I was playing
a Pete Nic in very good form. The first game was a very high pace, a lot of
‘hand-ins’ and ‘hand-outs’, but just not many points. The next two games
were a similar story I am afraid. I played okay, kept on getting chances but
made too many errors, mainly due to how good a player he was. He volleys so
well and his forhand is so strong, he really is a strong player. I wanteed
to keep the ball on his backhand (not that he is exactly “weak” there) but
somehow we always ended up rallying on his forehand and I am thinking “How
did this happen?”.
It was a good performance by Pete, and this was in fact my first loss in
twenty matches for my Danish League team, but I suppose it is not exactly a
disgrace. The final tomorrow could be interesting but I think Paderborn will
triumph, and hopefully we can scrape third place in our match at 10am!
I think it is worth mentioning a photo I saw downstairs in the squash club
of Paderborn’s old campaigner, Tim Garner, with bleached blonde hair,
brighter than the sun. It is not the sharpest I have seen Tim look but in
his defence he said it was for a bet after a good win, I think he secretly
loved it though!
Andy Whipp
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Champions
Paderborn will defend their European Clubs title after
demolishing Denmark's Herlev/Hjorten in tonight's semi-final.
Earlier,
top seeds Rózsadombi came through against English champions
Colets in a much tighter contest. Mark Cairns put Colets ahead, and when
Danny Meddings came from 2-0 down to level against Andras Torok Colets
looked on course. But Torok rallied to take the fifth just as Marcus
Berrett was easing past Alex Gough in the top match. At 2-1 to the
Hungarian team it needed an epic performance from Alex Stait for Colets,
but Joey Barrington proved too strong.
The
women's final will see Germany's Bordesholm face Pontefract
of England. Led by Annelize Naude Bordesholm weren't much troubled by
Odense, while Pontefract needed to come from one down to beat SAS Wein.
