Watts regains title as Dodd successfully defends hers
MARTIN WATTS’ blue-riband victory and an improved women’s competition ensured that the heavily-delayed Ogier Island Squash Championships finals would prove worth the wait.
Uniquely, the preliminaries took place over several weekdays back in January, building towards a Saturday conclusion.
But a second lockdown dealt an untimely blow to the planned finals day.
Ultimately, nearly four months later than initially planned, those postponed title deciders went ahead in a long-awaited finals weekend at Beau Sejour.
This culminated in a Grade A shoot-out between development officer Watts and reigning champion Janick Radford.
The old hand would come out top, albeit in five games and over the span of 58 minutes.
Radford won the opener 7-11 before Watts flipped that in the second, then taking the initiative by taking the third 11-8.
Radford forced a decider by winning the next 11-9 and the fifth game turned out to be equally tight but just about went in Watts’ favour.
‘I’m a bit surprised, as organiser and seeing how the results were going, as Janick had been playing really well,’ Watts said.
‘For my body to hold up that well, I was quite surprised.
‘It was quite an intense, long game.’
In the women’s draw, the stage was set for a showdown between the decorated Natalie Dodd and developing Katherine Jensen, both undefeated in qualifying.
Jensen played some nice, accurate squash to snatch the opener from Gibraltar 2019 silver medallist Dodd, and though the latter came through the next three games, it was an encouraging show for her challenger.
‘I would go as far as to say she’s an island champion of the future,’ the development officer said of Jensen. ‘It’s nice to see people coming through to challenge Natalie.’
Watts had joined forces with Laurence Graham to win the top-flight doubles in straight games from Radford and Sam Shields.
