Mark Herring reports:
First of all I must say a huge thank you to Harrow School and Graham Dunbar for letting us have the use of the courts for the weekend. A large entry included over 50 pairs. The Main Tournament saw 24 pairs entering and the festival had 28 which included seven L.A. Zuoz pairs which came over with Seb Cooley (Fives Coach) and George Campbell (Games Master).
Saturday
The Festival
Played in one day due to the Zuoz pupils leaving on Sunday morning and many others unable to make the Sunday matches. The format was simple, four groups of seven all one game matches to 12 and the top two to qualify. The standard was very good and there wasn't much to choose between the pairs in the pools or the quarter-finals.
The semi-finals shaped up with the Cambridge pair of Ed Paul and George Pender beating the Westminster pair Bott and Sakhrani with little worry and booked their place in the finals with a 12-8 win. The other semi-final saw Tudor and Basset beat Charlotta Cooley and Will Illingworth in a cracker of a game which went to sudden death. Sadly for Illingworth and Cooley it wasn't to be their day and they were knocked out at 12-11.
The final was a little one-sided and saw E.Paul and G.Pender winning the one game match to 15 with ease and were the last pair off the courts on Saturday evening at 8pm!
The Main Tournament
With the entry standing at 24 it was easy to set up four groups of six and top two to qualify. All games were best of one and all seeds as expected qualified for the final rounds. However in Pool C D.Mew and P.Cohen beat E.Taylor and I.Hutchinson to claim top spot. This made the quarter- finals looks like this:
T. & P. Dunbar (Harrovians) v C.Jewkes & T.Macdonald (Olavians)
H.Wiseman & D.Hawkins (Olavians) v E.Taylor & I. Hutchinson (Salopians)
S.Cooley & M.Wiseman (Olavians) v M.Herring & D.Foster (Berkhamstedian/Lancing)
D.Mew & P. Cohen (Olavians) v S.Ranasinghe & E.Rose (Olavian/Westminster)
Hutchinson and Taylor fought hard and won their quarter-final in the closest of all four. They beat Wiseman and Hawkins in a thrilling match 2-1. All other quarter-finals went the way of the seeding and were mostly comfortable wins with 2-0 to all. The Dunbars brushed there injured opponents aside. M.Wiseman and S.Cooley were behind 6-3 early on but fought past an aggressive Foster and Herring assault.
Sunday - Semi-finals
The semis were best of five; sadly the all-Olavian affair was disturbed by an arm injury to P.Cohen which affected the game and M.Wiseman and S.Cooley had no trouble to get through an easy match 3-0.
The other semi-final was much closer and at 1-1 could have gone either way, however T.Dunbar's cool head steered them through an excellent match 3-1 against the Salopians.
Final
As the seeding went the final was to be played between the top two seeds.
Only a handful of spectators were lucky enough to view what happened next. The Olavian pair came out all guns blazing in the first two games which both had to be re-setted (15-12 & 15-10). At this point it seemed it would be an easy 3rd game for the pair and everyone could get home nice and early. What happened next was a real story. The 3rd game was the quickest of all a breathtaking 12-3 win for the Harrow pair. However Tom had damaged his ankle in the semi-final seemed to be limping as was Seb who had cramp which was to continue for the rest of the match! In the 4th game it was Pete's turn to get cramp in both arms and legs. Finally Matt was to hurt his back (later it was confirmed he had cracked ribs on the buttress) so with all four players injured they seemed to be on equal terms. The 4th game went to the Harrow boys again with a close game of 12-8.
The 5th game was the best of all in terms of fight and skill. The Olavians took a huge lead of 7-1 and seemed to cruise it only for the Harrow pair to score 10 un-answered points to lead 11-7! They had three hands but couldn't find a winner. Next Seb came to the party with some breath taking winners to score four points in one hand and the 5th game was re-set at foot at 2. Another two points from Seb and Olaves 13-11 up looked set for the win. Harrow were not down and out and levelled at 13 all. Between the pairs they had an astonishing nine hands on step. The last point went in favour of the Harrow brothers. They retained the London Tournament with a 5 game win 12-15, 10-15, 12-3, 12-8, 14-13. It was an amazing five game match which lasted just around 3 hours 45 mins.