Sussex Circuit 2011-12

Horsham Development Competition

Dec 2011

22 players took part in a Development Competition in Horsham on 3rd December in Forest School. At first there were two Bands A and B, but after the initial groups, Band B was split into Bands B and C. This was not possible at first, as it was not obvious which bands in which to place the players.

Good Result for Goodstone!

Band A consisted of seven players, who all played each other. At the top end there was an exciting contest between the top three, with Sam Dallas beating William Goodstone, Goodstone beating Sam Lu and then Lu overcoming Dallas from 2-0 down in a tense five-setter. This led to a countback situation, with Dallas emerging the group winner and Goodstone the runner-up. Alex Bryant came fourth with two wins. Lower down there was another tussle between two players Dominic Hawkins and Luca Christophersen. They both won a match each, but since Hawkins beat Christophersen he took fifth.

After the initial group, the top four went into a group together and played each other again & the lower three combined with the Band B winner Matthew Davies to form a group of four. Goodstone beat Dallas and went on to repeat his impressive victory over Lu to take the top spot with Lu in second and Dallas third. Again lower down there was a count back with Hawkins, Field, Christophersen and Davies all winning two matches each (taking into account results from both groups). Hawkins emerged top from the calculations.

Great Day for Davies

Band B started off as four groups. The top group in Band B was Matthew Davies, Lauren Pound, Samuel Shoubridge and William Michell and they finished in that order. When the group had ended and Davies was playing the Band A players, the other three played each other again and had the same results again. Second group in Band B was won by Finley Smithers-Green, with Joe Harris runner-up.

Callum Conquers!

The winner of Band C was Callum Robertson. There were only three players in that group so they played each other twice. Robertson won all four of his matches, although was pushed all the way to the fifth versus Max Mildren. Mildren and Alex Pelling-Fulford beat each other once each, but Pelling-Fulford had a better games difference, so finished above Mildren.

Band C Group 2 involved four players all from Itchingfield School and they had some good games with Markus Kullerkupp emerging the clear winner with three wins. Jamie Page was second. After the second round of groups, all Band B Group 2 and all Band C players played one or two play-off matches against players they had not already played. These matches all went according to the placings list below except that Jamie Page had a good win over Pelling-Fulford, who finished three places higher than him in the list.

Placings List

Band A:

1) William Goodstone (Eastbourne)

2) Sam Lu (Lancing)

3) Sam Dallas (Horsham)

4) Alex Bryant (Haywards Heath)

5) Dominic Hawkins (Horsham)

6) Luca Christophersen (Haywards Heath)

7) Ollie Field (Horsham)

Band B:

1) Matthew Davies (Haywards Heath)

2) Lauren Pound (Horsham)

3) Samuel Shoubridge (Horsham)

4) William Michell (Horsham)

5) Finley Smithers-Green (Horsham)

6) Joe Harris (Horsham)

7) Sammy Arthur (Horsham)

8) Matthew Weller (Horsham)

Band C:

1) Callum Robertson (Horsham)

2) Alex Pelling-Fulford (Worthing)

3) Max Mildren (Horsham)

4) Markus Kullerkupp (Horsham)

5) Jamie Page (Horsham)

6) Connor Watkins (Horsham)

7) Nathan Hartnell (Horsham)

Report by Rory Scott

Not Quite a Pounding

7/1/12

The latest Sussex circuit event had a nearly 40% increase in attendance from the previous one with 55 youngsters competing throughout the day. Once again there was a strong Band A field with several county players participating.

A big thank you was given out to the sponsors for the event: Tees Sports, Heritage Oil, Griffin Security & Technology and Ray Hole Architects. Those that assisted with running the bands and setting up and down were also thanked gratefully.

Group 1 of Band A went pretty much to seeding with Mark Collins, Marcus Bracey and Emma Sheen finishing first, second and third respectively. Collins only dropped one set against Bracey.

Group 2 was much more exciting with Holly Holder narrowly losing to Daniel Pound 11-9 in the fifth set after having a match point in the fourth. Pound’s disappointment continued when he lost 3-0 to Sam Lu who had a terrific match. William Goodstone played well against Holly Holder to finish in the top three of the group stages. This left the finishing positions from top down as Lu, Pound and Goodstone.

In the winners group there were more unexpected results to come with Marcus Bracey winning a close five set match against Lu and Emma Sheen wining a close five-setter against Goodstone. Pound picked up his performance with three consecutive 3-0 wins including an impressive performance against Collins. This left the result of the last match deciding all the positions. Collins beat Lu 3-1 leaving the finishing positions: 1 Dan Pound, 2 Mark Collins and 3 Sam Lu.

In the morning Band B event Ryan Gregory took first position with straight sets victories throughout the event with the exception of his group match against Ben Ledger. Ben Worley won a close encounter against Dominic Hawkins to pick up silver with Hawkins third.

The Band A event in the afternoon saw Mark Collins cruise through the group with 3-0 victories against all he played. Much improved William Goodstone notched up another impressive win against Bart Rayson to finish runner-up in the group with Rayson third.

Group 2 was a much closer fought contest with Michael Bridger finishing top with a great match against Emma Sheen, winning 11-9 in the fifth and Freddy Goodall beating Emma in another close one to leave Bridger top, Goodall second and Sheen third.

In the deciding group Collins continued his fantastic form winning all his remaining matches 3-0. Second place went to Bridger but Sheen improved her finishing to take two more wins to secure third spot.

The afternoon Band B event saw a nail biting final with Rory Fraser winning the five set thriller against Kate Bridger. Luke Stewart won the decider for third place against Dominic Hawkins to pick up the bronze medal position.

Finishing Positions:

Band A morning

1^st Daniel Pound 2^nd Mark Collins 3^rd Samuel Lu 4^th Marcus Bracey 5^th Emma Sheen 6^th William Goodstone7 ^th Holly Holder 8^th Sam Dallas 9^th Bart Rayson 10^thVatsalRaina 11^thVyasRaina 12^th Tom Brook

Band B morning

1^st Ryan Gregory 2^nd Ben Worley 3^rd Dominic Hawkins 4^th Morgan Blake 5^th Alex Bryant 6^th David Poole 7^thIssac Wright 8^th Ollie Fields 9^th Matthew Davies 10^th Lauren Pound 11^th Evan Blake 12^th Sam Arthur 13^th Ben Ledger 14^th Finley Smithers- Green 15^th Jonathan Grainger 16^th Markus Kullerkupp

Band A afternoon

1^st Michael Collins 2^nd Michael Bridger 3^rd Emma Sheen 4^th William Goodstone 5^th Bart Rayson 6^th Freddy Goodall 7^th Ryan Gregory 8^thVyasRaina 9^th Sam Wray 10^th Ben Worley 11^th Annabel Bridger 12^thVatsalRaina

Band B afternoon

1^ST Rory Fraser 2^nd Kate Bridger 3^rd Luke Stewart 4^th Dominic Hawkins 5^th Max Griffiths 6^th Ollie Fields 7^thRoddy McGillivray 8^th Luca Christopherson 9^th Nathan Wadey 10^th Louis Zanden 11^th Jude Perring 12^thCallum Price 13^th Paddy Cotter 14^th Kieran Bonner 15^th Matthew Weller 16^th Brandon Williams 17^th Matt Ames 18^th Oliver Cann 19^th Louis Wynn- Roberts 20^th Joe Fagan 21^stMikeyBrinklow 22^ndCallum Robertson