Wuraola justifies his seeding

The Cippenham Veterans’ 2-Star Open Championships on Sunday attracted a good entry of sixty-four players and a highly ranked champion in Abdul Wuraola, number one ranked veteran in England.

Wuraola was ranked about 900 points and many places above second seed Fred Dove and the difference in class showed. Wuraola did not drop a game all day in claiming the title and this included a final 11-9, 11-5, 11-6 demolition job on Dove, a player to whom he had lost in another recent tournament.

There were a lot of close and exciting encounters during the day’s play and two in particular featured Wayne Matthews. After proceeding out of Group 1 where had had to play second fiddle to Wuraola, Matthews went on a run that saw him beat David Fraser in five games in the first knock-out round, then John Fannin rather more comfortably three-straight, followed by another five game epic with Lee Middleton. That was his limit however because, after winning the first game of his semi-final again Dove, Matthews slipped away 3-1. Two of his previous victims also had their own moments of glory in the preliminary round groups. Fraser had beaten eighth seed David Crowley while Middleton had scored an impressive win against third seed Steve Davis, both seeds thereby being relegated to second place in their groups.

It mattered not to Davis who found a different path to his allotted semi-final berth. En route he beat his Graham Spicer team-mate fourth seed Derek Holman and then Cippenham’s most impressive player of the day, Paul Elliott, in the quarter-final.

Elliott was another who scored a good result in the groups, beating fifth seed Andy Misseldine. He then went on to beat Crowley and then Tony Dias, the latter 13-11 in the fifth, before extending Davis after having been 2-1 up at one stage.

Roger Hookey, from the Isle of Wight but a Cippenham player in the Veterans’ British League, justified his sixth seed billing by reaching the quarter-final, falling to Dove, while other local players to make it into the competition proper included Elroy Hull, Neil Bird and Phil Prady. Prady’s success included a win over seventh seed Andy Frain in the groups.

Two newcomers battled out the final of the Women’s Singles. Neither Julie Thorn, the winner, nor Janice Lee, runner-up, had competed in a veterans’ event at Cippenham before. Thorn needed to come back from a 2-1 deficit in the final to take the winner’s trophy back to the Isle of Wight.

Results of finals:

Men’s Singles: Abdul Wuraola (Surrey) beat Fred Dove (Essex) 11-9,11-5,11-6

Women’s Singles: Julie Thorn (Isle of Wight) beat Janice Lee (Surrey) 12-10,9-11,8-11,11-9,11-5

Men’s Consolation: Maurice Isaacs (Middx) beat Mike Wilkins (Bucks) 12-10,10-12,11-7,11-8

Women’s Consolation: Diane Taylor (Berks) beat Margaret Thornton (Surrey) 6-11,13-11,4-11,11-5,11-9