CI Championships 2018

Guernsey’s leading players dominated proceedings during the annual CI Championships held in Guernsey on Friday evening at the GTTA Centre at the Hougue Du Pommier with trophies won in 15 of the 20 events.

Leading the charge was Garry Dodd, who underlined his dominance of the sport and position as the best player in the Channel Islands when he picked up a trio of CI titles, which most significantly included his 7th showpiece CI Men’s Singles crown.

Dodd’s triumph in the Men’s Singles event came together with wins in the Men’s Doubles alongside Adam Langlois and the Mixed Doubles with Paula Le Ber and he was untroubled in each event. He commenced with a comfortable straight sets win alongside Langlois over Josh Band and Tyler Gosselin and finished the night with another comfortable 4-0 win over Bruce Gallichan and Kay Lefebvre alongside Le Ber which commenced with an 11-0 opening game. 

Sandwiched in between these wins was the showpiece final against Jersey’s leading player, the Polish star Grzegorz Frankowski. The 2008 CI Top 12 winner Frankowski had already picked up the Restricted Open Singles title after recovering from dropping the opening game to overcome Paul Hainsworth 4-1 and was expected to pose a challenge to Dodd in their encounter. Dodd was near his imperious best in the encounter however and at no point did any result other than a 4-0 win look to be on the cards. Frankowski was never allowed to settle into his rhythm, with Dodd controlling proceedings from the offset in particular with clinical topspin returns off the serve putting him on top of the rallies. The outcome was indeed 4-0, but you are unlikely to see a more one sided affair than this in all of the CI Men’s Singles finals, Dodd dropping just 16 points along the way with his symmetrical 11-4, 11-4, 11-4, 11-4 triumph.

Kay Chivers was likewise comfortable on the evening and added her 6th CI Women’s Singles crown, her 6th CI Women’s Veterans Singles title and incredibly her 19th CI Women’s doubles crown on the night. Her win in the doubles alongside Dawn Morgan marked their 6th title together and they were in cruise control over the Caesarean pairing of Kay Lefebvre and Pauline Soper, coming through in straight sets. It was a similar story in the Women’s Singles where Irene Bree was dispatched for the loss of just 18 points, 11-1 the score in the closing 4th end. The Women’s Veterans Singles resulted in another comfortable straight sets win over Soper.

Phil Ogier has been virtually unstoppable at Veteran level since entrance in 2014 and he continued this excellent record with another duo of titles. The Veteran Singles final was inevitably against the evergreen Eugene ‘Yogi’ Ellis and the pair have shared some titanic battles over the year, the majority coming in the blue riband Men’s Singles event or the Green Trophy Inter-Insular event. In another top tussle, it was Ogier who ultimately came through as a comfortable 4-1 winner to make it 4 titles from the 5 he has contested. In the Veterans Doubles he has the perfect record alongside Jez Powell and title number 5 came this year after their 4-1 win over Ellis and Bruce Gallichan.

In the Junior level, Ben Foss was the biggest winner alongside Dodd and Chivers due to his haul of 3 titles. 4-1 Singles wins came in the Under 18 Boys and Under 21 Open Singles against David Quinn and Green trophy player Tyler Gosselin respectively and he finished up by combining with Ryan Bichard to defeat Quinn and Jacob Gosselin 4-0 in the Under 18 Open Doubles.

Ben Sharp put in a solid performance to see off the spirited challenge of Jersey’s upcoming Under 11 player Taylor Roche in the Under 13 Open Singles. Sharp dispatched his opponent in 5 sets, but the young Jersey player did taste success in the Under 11 Open Singles after he overcame the Sarnian challenge of Zaheer Anees 4-2 in an entertaining match from the opening session of the evening.

Corey Brouard put in a good effort against Leon Pierre in the Under 15 Boys Singles, but lost out in 5 sets.

Alderney continue to produce some high quality junior players and currently particularly on the girls side. Amy Wesley showed her potential during a 6 set win over the highly talented and upcoming Hannah Silcock in the Under 15’s Girls Singles, but she was unable to complete the double after going down in 6 games to Irene Bree in the Under 18 Women’s Singles.