Squash: Bravo Restaurant-sponsored knockout tournament |29 October 2019
From left to right: Pragassen, Adela, Mr Simeon of Bravo Restaurant, Bork and Mondon
Pragassen, Bork claim Bravo tournament titles
Top local player Klaus Pragassen and Anders Bork were the grand winners in the Bravo restaurant-sponsored knockout tournament that was completed over the weekend at the squash courts at Mont Fleuri.
In the men’s final, Pragassen faced a new adversary in the shape of Marcus Adela who caused the shock of this yearly tournament when he rallied from two sets down in the semifinal to beat Rod Thorrington in a thrilling five-set encounter.
In the final, Adela made a bright start as he led 5-2 but Pragassen levelled the score at nine all to go on to win the first set 13-11 and the second set was a similar story where Adela went into the lead but the defending champion used his experience to move into control of this match by claiming this set 11-7.
Adela tried to put on a fight in the third but after equalising at 8-8, he made some costly errors to hand the set to his opponent 11-9 and the title to Pragassen who has now won this crown for the last four years and he was quite pleased with the level of competition as well as appreciative of Adela who had earned a lot of respect for his showing at this tournament.
“It was a very interesting final where the first set was balanced but my opponent, who had a very good tournament, began to run out of steam in the next two sets which made things easy for me and I’m happy to have won this tournament which went quite well,” Pragassen told Sports NATION.
As for Adela, he was quite pleased with the way this competition had panned out and especially to reach his first grand final.
“I am very satisfied with my performance and I started well in the final but could not match my opponent’s experience, but I’m just elated to have surprised everyone to make it to my first final and the win in the semis against the favourite Rod Thorington was the highlight of my career,” said 37-year-old Adela.
In the plate final, newcomer Anders Bork won his first title by edging past Paul Mondon in straight sets in a very close game. Bork just had more stamina to see off Mondon who was still pleased to be in the final, while Bork was very happy to have won this final which he said he never expected would go his way.
The prizes for this annual knockout event sponsored by Bravo restaurant was presented by its manager Daniel Simeon who reassured the squash family of the restaurant’s continued sponsorship for the coming years.
R. J-L.
