The seven day squash festival comes to a close in Manchester with Mohamad Zakaria and Torrie Malik crowned this years champions.
This year we raised a fantastic £8,000 for the Brian Tumour Charity. There is still time for you to give through this link: https://www.justgiving.com/page/njc2023?newPage=true.
Here is our whistle stop tour across the week:
Day 1 saw Wolf day as Nick Matthew come to Cheetham Hill. In a full evening of clinics, we saw a great number get on court with the former World Champion to learn a thing or to. The evening finished alongside our resplendid women’s teams with exhibition matches from Lowri Roberts, Hayley Ward, Dewald Van Neikerk, Stephen Hearst, and Finn Withington alongside Nick himself.
Day 2 and we entered into the NWCSL title clash as Warrington spearheaded by Adrian Waller took on the mighty Cheetham Hill who were headlined by Nick Wall Jnr. Cheetham Hill in fantastic form took a 4-1 win to set the title race alight!
Day 3 was the start of the PSA event. Round one had some tasty line ups with locals Amy Royle, Stephen Hearst, and Lewis Doughty in action. Isaac Rawcliffe himself fell to Lewis Doughty the king of Rochdale, and Amy had a fantastic win. Jonah Bryant headlined in the men’s draw beating world junior champion Hamza Khan 3-1. Alongside the evening we had women’s clinics, and junior clinics to.
Day 4 saw more local players come into the event with Saran Nghiem the defending champion starting her campaign alongside Lowri Roberts in the womens event, and Finn Withington lead his campaign in the men’s draw alongside hopeful Emyr Evans to. All came through day 4, with probably notably Finn beating Jonah Bryant to return the favour he did him on Tuesday. This all rand smoothly alongside NWCSL matches at both Fairways Lodge and Cheetham Hill.
Day 5 was crunch time as the PSA hotted up at Cheetham Hill and the team event got underway at both venues. We had the lovely addition of Sam and his guitar to bring the players in to great indie hits! Finn fell on day 5, alongside Lowri whilst Emyr and Saran marched on.
Right now to bring in all the title contenders into the story! Semi finals day Torrie Malik beat Nour Megahed 3-1 to seal her place in the final, she was joined by Saran who beat Yasshmita 3-0. This set up a rematch of last years final. Men’s semi’s Toufik beat Dewald who became a local favourite this year in his stay in Manchester 3-0, he joined 16 year old Mohamad Zakaria who beat Emyr in a fanastic 3-2 battle in front of a partisan home crowd at Fairways. The Team event came to a close with Wolf Cubs, Lancaster 1, and Paulio all taking the various A-C grade titles.
Sunday saw the start of the individual graded across both venues. Well done to the well over 50 that took part. It also saw finals day infront of a packed out Fairways Lodge. This followed the one rally challenge won this year by PSA’s Tom Benthall who swapped from behind the lens to in front of it to win the Karakal sponsored challenge. The PSA finals saw some great squash from Zakaria who showed he is one to watch and Torrie took the women’s final in fine style.
Well done to all involved, it was a great team effort with a lot of volunteers, a great atmosphere and a tremendous amount raised for the charity! See you next year!
