Shaun Hennessy was Carlow’s top finisher at the Irish Junior Open held in Galway for the first time last weekend. More than 130 players from England, Norway, Sweden, and Canada all took part in an entertaining and well run event.
Hennessy finished fourth in a highly competitive U13 section. Ryan Luther finished his weekend with a great win over his Norwegian opponent 3/1 to finish 11th. In the plate section Marc Dalton played his first big event and finished third and is certainly a new player with great potential.
Pia Dalton played very well and is another of the young up and upcoming Carlow players and finished third in her U11 section, and again like her brothers Marc and Erik it was her first big open event.
Young Casey Luther who opted to play U13 finished a great weekend for her with a 3/2 over Róisín Ó Shea to take seventh place on Sunday.
In the boys U19 both Enda Holohan and Seamus Harmon lost their preliminary round match and thus did not make it into the main event.
The girls U17 trio of Katelyn Doran (11th ), Melissa Ní Bhroin (14th ) and Elaine Ware (13th ) all finished down in the bottom half of their section. Katelyn (9/16 ) lost her first round to Rachael Black (5/8 ) 3/0 followed by Jim Hegarty 3/0 but did have an excellent win over Eva Macmillan 3/0. Elaine Ware lost her first round to Katerina Strakova from Czech 2/11, 6/11,3/11 and then to Eva Macmillan while Melanie lost out in first round to Rebecca Quiney from England 3/0.
Fiona Murphy showed her improvement with a sixth place finish in the U15 girls. She was very competitive right though the weekend and could have won her final match against Breanne Flynn Dublin on Sunday, the 3/0 score line did not reflect just how close the games were.
The U17 boy’s event was a full 32 man draw and this was fiercely competitive with the top four places all going to the visitors. Cathal Hennessy finished 13th overall. Cathal is coping with the challenges of men’s league squash in Dublin each week and his improvement will gather momentum as the year progresses. Conall Murphy survived a fright in the third round when he was taken to 5 and Kevin Mc Namara finished 20th. Murphy had a solid 3/0 win over Callum Lee on the Sunday to ensure 20th. Eric Dalton a newcomer to this level finished an excellent 28th. Jim Kenny took ill on the Friday night and had to withdraw from the event. It’s great to see he is back on the mend.
Sarah Murphy finished eighth in the girls’ U19 section in which saw the number one seed Millie Tomlinson from England cruise to the final where she met the Dutch player and number two seed Mil Van Der Heijden and subsequently won easily.
