DARTINGTON Squash Club held their annual junior whistlestop tournament this weekend.

It is an unusual competition in that the players play each other on a round robin basis, but for a strictly limited time of five minutes (that’s when the whistle goes). In this time, they accumulate as many points as possible and the winner is the one who has the highest number of points at the end.

This year there were seven U11s in the youngest section of the tournament, a very encouraging entry in this category.

The hot favourite was seven-year-old Rudy Courtice, but Ioan Murray-Brown was hoping to cause an upset.

As it was, Rudy had his hardest game with Ioan, coming through 14-11 in a very tight contest. Jimmy Cates showed considerable promise in coming third, but in future years, Arabella Hayden, Jonty Wilson and Eddie Sear will all progress as well.

Finally, five-year-old Hugo Hayden proved that you are never too young to start playing squash, and he showed great promise against tough opposition.

The teenage section showed the depth of junior squash that Dartington possesses. The six entrants are all excellent players, highlighting the depth of talent on show at Dartington.

Early interest was to see if Harry Courtice could avenge his defeat by Gabe Partridge in this year's Club Championships…this he did, Harry winning their encounter 16-12.

An interesting match was Oliver Stein against his younger brother, Liam, Oliver squeezing through 14-13.

The anticipated main encounter was to see if Albert Courtice could beat Gabe Nortrop-Bromley. Gabe’s game has come on in leaps and bounds in the past few months, not only tactically, but with greater power than Albert was used to, so Gabe's win 16-10 was enough to see him come out the overall winner.

Dartington Squash Club are delighted to have so many up-and-coming junior players, all of whom play with determination and all displaying excellent sportsmanship.