The 28th running of the Dave Karran Memorial Squash Competition took place at the NSC last week.

A total of 26 players entered and were split into four grades according to their rankings.

Each group then played a round robin with each competitor playing at least three matches to decide each grade winner.

First round matches played on Tuesday went according to seeding with most matches being won either 3-0 or 3-1.

Thursday night was a different story with a few games going all the way to five sets.

In the B grade competition, Steve Baker had to use all his experience to beat Phil Butler.

In the C grade, Beth Jones was taken all the way to five before beating veteran Pete Sharples.

D group match of the night was between Sam Elliott and Lucas Kenyon with the former winning 11/9 in the fifth.

A group’s standout game was between Liam Davies and Damien Loughrey.

Davies had to go all the way to five sets to beat Loughrey 11/9 in the fifth.

Final matches in each group were played on Friday night.

Winner of group D was Elliott and winner of group C George Rumney.

Both of the top groups were played on a Swiss system format instead of a round robin so group B was won by Chris Walton who beat Ben Leith 3-1 in the final.

Winner of the A group got to take home the Manx Telecom Rosebowl and the final to decide this was between Thom Whiteway and Malcolm Levy.

A very close first game saw Levy win 13/11 but then Whiteway won the next two.

Game four was a fantastic battle with Whiteway retrieving well and producing some great lengths countered by Levy’s ability to play tight drop shots from anywhere on the court.

The latter won the battle 12/10 to set up a fifth set.

Levy used his drop shots to perfection to win the match 11/8 and become the winner of the Manx Telecom Dave Karran Memorial Rosebowl for the second time having won it in 2011.

A big thanks to Manx Telecom and to Dave’s two brothers Bill and Brian for their continued support in this very popular event.

LES CALLOW