The US Men’s Closed Championship was a historic event for the new champ, 3rd seed Chris Hanson, for beating out world-star junior player & 4th seed Andrew Douglas, in an hour+ battle. Douglas himself a new star, beat the previous new star, defending champ, Todd Harrity. The top US players are in a changing cycle of the guard, and participation numbers in this Closed Champs was the best they have seen in many many years. Like Canada will do this year for the first time, their National Championship is now based on 16 player draw, plus a 16 player qualification. It was a popular format, the standard of play with young college players was solid, and if the success of their event is an indicator for Canada’s first attempt at this 16 + 16 format, then I’m confident we’ll have a better Canadian National Championship event with the right number of compelling and meaningful matches. Unfortunately due to women’s international tour scheduling, the US Women’s National Champs is held separately at another time in the season, and this certainly detracts away from the Men’s event.
At the US Men’s & Women’s Masters Championships, which like Canada, runs in conjunction with the Closed National Champs, in all, about 11 Canadians and some partners visited the lavish and historic Philadelphia Cricket Club; we stayed out of trouble on Saturday night, and held good representation and respectable placings in Sunday’s finals:
· Gerry Poulton; Victoria - Champion in the 70+ (5th US Title!!)
· Steve Wren; Gatineau - Champion in the 50+
· Diana Roper; Toronto - 2nd place in the 60+
· Wayne Weatherhead; Toronto - 2nd place in the 60+
· Tom Bedore; Vancouver - 4th place in 60+
· Rudy Rodriguez; Ottawa - 5th place in the 45+
· Brad Munroe; Toronto - 5th place in the 55+
· Guy Gordon; Toronto - 5th place in the 60+
· Bill Lam; Toronto - 6th place in the 55+
· Trent Haase; Toronto - 7th place in the 50+
· Tony Picostia, Aurora - 9th place in the 60+
· Allison Waddington, Wasaga - placed in the 50+
Written by Steve Wren.