Isle of Man Squash Rackets Association’s final event before the festive break is the annual Christmas Handicap Tournament.

This is a fun event where competitors are encouraged to wear fancy dress.

The tournament also makes use of the Squash Levels handicapping chart which compares players’ levels and allocates them points handicaps to ensure that the matches are close, in theory.

The tournament was well supported last week with an entry of 24 competitors all very keen to display their fancy dress costumes while enjoying a good match of competitive squash. Christmas music was played to accompany the games, kindly provided by Emma Leith.

The handicaps are often very harsh for the better players so the winners of this competition are usually the lower-ranked players.

Spectators witnessed some good matches in the first round, including Junior Academy head coach Pat Fitzpatrick (-5) appearing in lycra as Mr Motivator against Olly Wait (5), with the latter narrowly getting the win in five very close games.

The only other 3-2 match in this round was between Racketeers stablemates, cheeky James Leith (-8) and Steven Wright (8), with the latter man getting the win. Super Mario Bros Ben Leith and Isaac Quayle put on a very entertaining match in great costumes.

The second round brought together the oldest player in the tournament, John Smith (7), and sixth form pupil Emma Leith (-7) - Smith’s clever shot selection enabled him to get the win in five tight games.

Leighton Ginty, another sixth form pupil, recorded a 3-2 win over the experienced John Watterson, while the other really close match was IoMSRA president Les Callow (8) battling hard to beat top-20 player James Ramsey (-8).

In the third round, Ben Leith and Isaac Quayle continued to impress at the top of the draw while lower down the order there was a super match between Emma Leith (-4) and Amaline Batty (4), with the former narrowly getting the win 3-2.

At the bottom of the draw, Hamish Thornton (-5) beat Steve Baker (5) despite being dressed as a burger, while Calum Baker (-11) struggled to get into positive figures in his match with Dave Johnson (11), showing how difficult it is to play with a big handicap.

The penultimate round saw Ben Leith and Callum Larkin book their places in the final through 3-2 and 3-0 wins respectively, while Elliot Henson and Leighton Ginty were another two younger players who progressed against older opposition.

Worthy of mention is the match between Vusimbe Zivave and Emma Leith where the handicapping meant that the latter had to win roughly three points to Zivave’s one, something she only just failed to do as her opponent triumphed 3-2.

The final round of matches saw a fantastic performance by Ashley Sandyford-Sykes who managed to play a melting five games dressed from head to toe as a fox with a very old wooden racket and still win despite having to come from -13 in each game.

The tournament Bowl winner was Pat Fitzpatrick (-5) who, despite going 2-0 down to Calum Baker (5), managed to turn it around to gain the trophy. The Plate final brought together Falcons team-mates Zivave (3) and Phil Butler (-3). The latter looked the better player (thanks to his James Bond costume) but Zivave played the better squash and was delighted with his win.

Steven Wright (8) claimed third place overall with a victory over Isaac Quayle (-8).

The final was between Ben Leith (-8) and Callum Larkin (8). The last time these players met competitively was in the IoMSRA Under-17s tournament which Ben won in straight games. This time, thanks to the handicapping, the result went the other way as Leith struggled to make up the points difference so Callum became a very worthy winner of the tournament and the chocolate Santa.

Prizes were also awarded to the competitors who wore the best costumes over the three days of the tournament. These went to Emma Leith, Isaac Quayle and Dave Johnson who went to great lengths to appear in various guises.

The IoMSRA would also like to thank Douglas Golf Club for allowing the tournament competitors to meet up there for a festive after-tournament social. STEVE BAKER