Phillip Boyle

Henzell Triumphs in Strong Field

Strong fields and a good local crowd had Croydon buzzing over the weekend. William Henzell asserted his dominance with a convincing display against a star-studded field at the Croydon Masters Open this weekend. The depth of the field was illustrated by the fact that the 2008 Oceania gold & silver medallists were unseeded. Henzell’s “excellence of execution” was too much for a determined Justin Han in the final as he recorded a 4-2 victory. Earlier Henzell defeated Kyle Davis 4-0 in the semis while Han held off a resurgent and entertaining Simon Gerada 4-2 (Simon showing there’s plenty of good play in him yet!). In the quarters Simon overcame David Powell 4-2, Kyle dug deep to get past Kiet Tran 4-2, Henzell outgunned Chamara Fernando 4-1, and Han defeated a desperately unlucky Rob Frank (14-12 in the 7th), and earlier rounds saw ‘Franky’ hold off an aggressive Trent Carter 4-2 and Kiet escape with a seven-set win over Ravi Ganapathy.

In the doubles NSW visitors George Tang & Kiet Tran caused an upset with a tight 5-set win over fancied pair Henzell & Han.

Miao Turns Tables

In the Women’s Singles Miao Miao and Jian Fang Lay faced off in yet another final and played yet another seven setter. This time Miao came out on top, avenging the recent Geelong result. Jian overcame strong resistance from Ivy Wang in her semi while Miao accounted for Melissa Tapper.

Michael Belot claimed his 3rd straight O30 Mens title with another convincing display. David Segal upset Danny Semmler to make the final but came up short against Belot’s relentless consistency. Semmler bounced back with a win in the men’s singles over Eddie Cotter. Eddie collected the scalps of Berry, Bisiach & Belot along the way, and won the Division 1 singles for good measure.

The U21 singles were won by David Powell & Ivy Wang who had convincing wins over Trent Carter & Melissa Tapper respectively. The established pair of Powell/Brown beat the Heming Hu & Lily Phan combination to take out the U21 doubles. Lily also recorded strong wins in the Restricted and Division 1 singles, yet again showing she can match it with the men. Visitor Michael Worobec knocked off local Graeme Edwards to take the Division 2 singles.

Powell Upsets Han in Juniors

In the junor tournament David Powell upset fancied Justin Han with an outstanding 3-0 win against one of Australia’s top players. Jesse Bricknell and the improving Daniel Phan were semi-finalists. Daniel backed up to win the Division 1 singles over Dillon Cathcart.

Lily Phan was untroubled to take both the U15 & U18 girls titles. Lily defated Louise Qiu in the U18 final after Louise knocked out Simone Chuah in the semi.

Local Mitch Ong-Thomson took out the Division 2 singles, defeating Nathan Van Der Heiden in the final. Mitch also won the Boys U13 singles, but could not match Dillon Cathcart in the boys U15 final. Dillon teamed with Alex Van Der Heiden to win the boys U18 doubles title.