Junior Gold #4

    This weekend 7 juniors took part in Gold #4 at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and  Curling Club.  Almost all players won their first round matches to move on to the next round.  Far different from last year at this time when many of our players continued to have difficulty staying in the main round.   Ananya (seeded #1 in U13) cruised through to the finals where she met up with Gabrielle Waite of the great Waite squash family.  Ananya proved to be too steady with too many good shots for Gabrielle.  Congratulations to Ananya for a well-played tournament and bringing home the gold medal to Windsor.
     Amin has made the jump into U17 and quickly realized that it is a much different game.  In the second round, he met up with Dylan Deverill (4th seed), a player who he has never beaten.  Not this time as Amin was able to take Dylan in 4 games to move on to the semi-finals.  It was during this match that Amin had the rally of the weekend.  Despite numerous nicks by each player during the rally, neither one could finish off the rally.   After what felt like 50 shots, Amin was finally able to put Dylan away.  Unfortunately for Amin, in the semis he discovered what moving up to another age division means.  You can't get away with the same shots and suddenly you find yourself under intense pressure.  In the end Amin finished in 4th place.
    Dylan Charles made his first Gold appearance (outside of Windsor).  Despite playing his first two round very tough, he wasn't able to pull out a victory.  It wasn't until the 3rd round that Dylan found his form, easily dispatching his opponent.  Dylan ended up in the Bronze final where he played great and battled down to the wire but unfortunately could not get the victory.  However, Dylan showed that he is ready to make the leap to the Gold tournaments.
     Ryan drew the #3 seed in the first round.  He almost always draw a seed in the first round.  Playing the seeds in the first round has caused Ryan to raise his overall game and it really showed in the next round.  Round  2 was a 1 hour, 15 min affair.  He must have been inspired by Jahangir and Shawn's talk of the record.  The rallies were long and neither playing was making many mistakes and both were chasing every ball down.  Despite 2 match balls in the 5th, he could get the victory.  A great match all the same.  Ryan won his next round and ended up in the Bronze final where he again played very strong and lost in a close match.
     Hannah won her first match easily and drew the #1 seed the next round.  She played her very tough and every game was a carbon copy of the previous.  Play was tight, right up to 8-8.  A couple of bad bounces and uncharacteristic errors and the game was lost.  Game 2, repeat.  Game 3, repeat.  Despite the 3-0 score, the match was very close.  In the next round she drew her practice partner Sara.  Sara lost the first round in a very touch match.  She won down 2 games only to come back and tie it up.  Game 5 went back and forth but Sara lost in extra points.  Sara proved to be the stronger player against Hannah in the next round.  However, Sara wasn't able to get past her next round though, bringing her weekend to a close.
     What would a Gold weekend be without entertainment from Usman.  Usman won his first round easily, leading him to the #2 seed in the draw.  In typical Usman fashion, he chased down every ball and didn't give up any easy points.  Every game in this match was close but he wasn't able to get the victory.
     All in all, Windsor played great.  Final results can be found here.