Khaled Younis won 14th Yorkshire Open Championship

[<<] [>>] by Samantha Thompson at Ripon Spa
20 Aug 2009 (GC - Championships)

Khaled Younis won the 14th Yorkshire Open Championship, beaing Ahmed El Mahdi 7-4, 5-7, 7-3.
Seventy spectators packed round lawn 1 for the all-Egyptian final, all eager to obtain a good vantage point for what they hoped would be titantic struggle. They were not disappointed! Khaled won the first game 7-4, Ahmed levelled it 7-5 in the second. Khaled took a couple of hoops lead early in the first and despite some quite excellent shots from Ahmed, never looked in trouble and won the last 7-3.

The semi finals were between Reg Bamford v Ahmed and Jacob Carr v Khaled. The first semi-final saw Reg pitted against Ahmed and after some excellent play by both players it was Ahmed who took the final game 7-4 to win by two games to one and progress to the final. Meanwhile on another lawn Jacob tussled manfully with Khaled but was beaten by two games to nil.

The quarter finals comprised of one 19-point game. the first casualty of the day was Dick Strover losing 10-3 to Reg . Miroslav Pazdora and Derek Buxton both lost 10-4 to Jacob and Khaled respectively, while Samantha Thompson had a great battle with Ahmed finally going down 10-8.

Twenty two players took part in the event, which was organised into three blocks: two of seven players and one of eight players with all play all twice in each block. A couple of the highlights included Ray Mounfield taking a game off Reg, and Ashby Club Member Mike O'Brian taking a game of Ahmed El Mahdi.

Evelyn Martin managed the tournament with her usual composure. Thanks must go to her and the staff of the Ripon Spa Hotel for their wonderful service.