SportsShoes Blog

The year finished off with the National championships commencing the weekend before Christmas.

First two rounds went smoothly and not taking to long beating Ronan Peyton and Rory Byrne in straight sets to keep the legs nice and fresh for the semis.

Here I met former world no.7 Derek Ryan. Exchanging the 1st two sets 11-9 I quickly won the 3rd to go 2-1 up only for Derek to pull up injured in the 4th.

In the final I met John Rooney the 1 seed losing the 1st 11-8 a crucial stage came at 6-6 in the 2nd only for John to pull away and again take it 11-7 and unfortunately a similar pattern followed in the 3rd and losing the match 11-8 11-7 11-8… Gutted-next year!

we started off 9th seeds and in our group we had poland, czech rep, hungary and gibraltar. we topped the group relativly comfortable and drew spain in the playoffs.
 
losing the opening ties 3-0 and 3-2 but winning the next 3-0 it came down to my match and id to win 3-1 at worst. had a slow start losing the 1st 11-1 but snook the 2nd in a tiebreak which gave me the momentum and won the next 2 11-3 11-4..
 
we played Scotland next, which was a really tight match again. We lost the opening matches 3-0 and 3-1 but securing the next 2 ties 3-1 and I won 3-0. With the match tied on matches and sets it went down to points and we lost by 3!
 
In the final match we played Finland and again it went on points countback but this time we managed to win by 8 points.
 
7th overall which wasn’t bad but we were aiming for 5th. The main thing though was to secure a place in the top 8 for next years event. Personally it went quite well as i won 7 matches out of 7 and a stretch of 11 unbeaten matches wearing the irish shirt..

lost in the first round of the British Open, the sports oldest event and most prestigious. drew chris ryder of england (world 35) and lost in 90 minutes 3 sets to 2..

following this i played in the windsor squash champs and with a relativly comfortable passage to the semis, defeated english duo joel hinds and phil nightengale to claim the title..

next up is world teams in denmark where il be hoping to continue my run of 11 matches unbeaten for ireland. tough task but will do my best

had a really good summers training and am rearing to go for the new season!

season kicked off in london this week for the world open qualifying with the prize being a place in the main draw alongsid the best players in the world in the richest tournament to date.

i played adil maqbool from pakistan, ranked65. winning the 1st in tiebreakwhich proved crucial as an energy drop in the second levelled the match 1 all. took the 3rd 11-9 and the 4th 11-8 to claim me place in the main draw.

next up is wolverhampton!

Off season at the moment so focusing mainly on pre season training. On top of that also theres a new BSPA Elite Summer series, which is sponsored on bwin and all matches are streamed live. It’s 2 groups of 4 with the winner of each going through to a final.

In the 1st event i played Aaron Frankcomb of Australia and lost in 58 minutes 11-9 11-9 11-9. Next up I played world 46 Chris Simpson of England where I won 13-11 15-13 11-4 saving 7

bspa and bwin have teamed up this summer and have arranged a number of events which are streamed live and facilitate live betting on the bwin website. format is 2groups of 4 with the top from each group to go through to a final.

in the 1st event i played aarron frankcomb of austrailia and lost 11-9, 9 and 9. next up was chris simpson world ranked 43 and i won 13-11 16-14 11-4. first 2 games could’ve went wither way bt once i got a 2 game lead i new he would struggle to come back. last up i played joel hinds and won in a tight 4 setter. 

in the 2nd event i played robbi temple of england forst and went 2-1 up but unfortunatly couldnt capitilise on that and last 11-7 in the 5th. next up was veteran steve meads this time to go 2-1 down only to pull it back and take the 5th 11-0! again last up was joel hinds and again it proved to be a very hard 4 setter with me taking the last set 16-14 and with it the match.

in between all that iv started a 10 week training programme to get me ready for the season beginning late august.

just played the Irish Open last week. One of the greatest events (tad biased!) which attracted a very strong field with former world numer 1 and current number 6 Tiery Lincou. In the last 16 I played mo el shorbaggy of Egypt and world number 17. I lost the 1st but played  strong second and at 8 all in the third i’d let it slip and he sneaked it. A little bit of frustration creeped in and a bad start in the 4th gave him the lead he needed to win the 4th 11-8. I played well in patches just needed to be a bit more patient at times bt its a good step in the right direction and proves the hard work is showing.

next up the europeans in malmo. our group (Ireland) is czech, poland, hundary and gibraltar.

In montreal for the above event and first up was maxym blouin. started off really slowly but credit to max as he took the first game 11-9. thisgot me going though and i quickly won the next 3 games 11-1 11-2 1-2.

next is rafeal allarcon of brazil. great test hes been on the tour  a long time and has won many titles and pan am games

played rafa allarcon of brazil and lost it 11-8 5-11 12-10 11-6.. was a good match and didnt played that badly but at 6all in the fourth i started to cramp up pretty bad. was low on salts and it was long match. i definatly had a bit more in the tank but thats sport.

next up Virginiafor one of the biggest events on the calender

in richmond virginia playing the above event, a suoer series and one of the biggest event of the year.

played david etherington 1st round and won 11-5 11-6 11-5 which set me up against campbell grayson, kiwi no.2 and world no.61. i took the first set 11-7. the second was really tough,point for point all the way with each of having game balls. eventually i took it 15-13. this took alot out of him physically and mentally and even though the 3rd wasnt easy but once i got a lead it was only going one way and i managed to win it 11-3 match time 58mins.

real happy to qualify for me first super series. see how we go…