This Is Guernsey

Ross Kneller (top) and Martin Watts during last year’s Island Championships Squash finals at Kings.

NOT for the first time the island senior men’s squash final at King’s Club will between Ross Kneller and Martin Watts.

In the semi-finals, Watts, the top seed, defeated Laurence Graham 9-7, 9-5, 10-8 and despite his opponent’s brave efforts never really had to move into top gear.

In the other semi  Henry Birch’s hopes of reaching his first senior final were dashed by Kneller, who had prepared well and was ready for a tough encounter.

Kneller got off to a flyer and didn’t allow his opponent  to settle as he won the first game 9-0 on only two hands out.

The second game was quite different with both players hitting hard and moving round the court like whirlwinds, making a somewhat difficult game look easy.

As the rallies were exchanged there was never more than two points in the score at any one time and predictably it reached 8-8.

This proved to be the decisive moment in the match for both players.

If Birch could somehow win this game and level the scores he would be in a good position to take the match.

But Kneller had other ideas and raised his level of concentration to steal it 10-8.

In the third it was business as usual as Kneller continued where he had left off racing to a 5-0 lead.

Birch, who never gave up, replied by bringing the scores back to 5-4 but he was always on the back foot  and Kneller was growing in confidence and won it 9-5.

Ironically, despite Birch’s loss, the trophy will have a prominent place in his house as both Watts and Kneller reside there.

There were two great matches in the women’s B event where Katherine Jensen beat Karen Higgs 3-2 and 10-9 in the decider.

After winning the first two games, Jensen had three match balls in the third, but her opponent began to read Jensen’s game and made changes to save the match balls and win the third 10-8.

Higgs was now in the driving seat and won the fourth game 9-5 to take the match into a fifth and deciding game in which she led 7-1 and then 8-4.

The match looked all but over but after having saved one match ball Jensen levelled the score at 8-8.

Then, with it 9-9, they held two match balls each before Jensen clinched it 10-9.

Her coach Peter Bridgeman said: ‘This is the sort of match I want all my juniors involved in.

‘It is important to have a good technique and that technique must work well under pressure.

‘Katherine is now ranked as a top 10 player in the UK and without competitive games on the island her improvement could stagnate. As her coach I learnt a lot from that game and I will be certainly passing that on to her.’