Although he won the Ogier Island Championships title for the third consecutive year and fourth overall, he only did so after overcoming up-and-coming player Toby Young in a five-game, 59min. epic of a final at Beau Sejour.
Young got a leg up by winning game one 11-8, and though Radford battled through the next 13-11, his rival reversed that to stay in the lead.
The Island Games man used his experience and at that point stamina to win the next game 11-9 and then take the decider 11-6.
‘They had a really, really good final,’ squash development officer Martin Watts said.
‘Just under the hour. I would expect a match between those two to last 45 minutes, but once you go to the hour, you start to get the old, traditional endurance side of squash.
‘I don’t think it’ll be too long before Toby has another opportunity in the future.’
Although Watts limited Grade A to just six players, this only ensured it produced ‘really competitive’ matches throughout.
That included Leo Ware returning from university to push the eventual champion to five games in the semi-finals.
The other semi had Young coming from a game down to overcome Island Games player Jack Turvey 3-1.
U17 Axel Svejstrup claimed the Grade B honours after a similarly hard-fought final, beating top seed Jack Tacon 11-4, 11-8, 11-13, 4-11, 7-11.
Up-and-coming talent was also on show in Grade C, which culminated in a showdown between two of Elizabeth College’s KS3 players that have been making their mark at the National Schools.
There, Rocco Elliott needed just three games and 20min. total to overcome Arthur Leonard.
An old ‘new’ face came out top of a round-robin women’s competition.
Gemma Coquelin returned from the Isle of Wight 2011 with women’s doubles silver but now, after nearly 15 years and plenty of time out to raise a young family, she still has what it takes to play quality squash.
She beat each of her opponents in straight games – having won over 77% of the points across her matches – to run out a convincing winner.
Cally Trewren secured runner-up after beating every player bar the winner, including edging a five-game victory in her important head-to-head against Linda Smith, who settled for third as a result.
The women’s draw was composed mostly of newer players who had not competed before and Watts was rather pleased with the numbers in what has typically been a lower-attended category.
‘It’s really good from our point of view that we had five players,’ he added.
‘It shows the progress we are making. We are starting to get some ladies playing and enjoying their squash.
‘Gemma won it relatively comfortably but the rest was very competitive.’
