The Utmost Wealth Isle of Man Squash Championships 2023 took place at the National Sports Centre recently.

Unfortunately because of injury, 23-time island champion Dave Norman was unable to defend his title but Nathan Mead, who won in 2021, was back to try to add to his previous win.

The first round of matches went with seeding but things started to warm up in the second round. Allister Crossley lost in five games (with a fifth game score of 14-16) to Liam Davies and Steve Baker lost in five very competitive games to Alan Macnair.

The third round saw all the top seeds win and one match to note was between Mason McLarney and Ben Peach, with McLarney winning in the fourth 14-12.

The quarter-finals saw two of the matches going to five sets, with Malcolm Levy just getting the better of Ashley Sandyford-Sykes 11-8 in the fifth and Patrick Fitzpatrick beating Jason Crease in a hard-hitting five-set match.

In the 9th to 16th play-offs, Macnair played in two five-set matches, firstly losing to Chris Walton and then to Lance Wyllie. Macnair eventually finished 16th.

In the 17th to 32nd play-offs, Emma Leith played Stephen Pitts in a great five-set match only narrowly losing 11-9 in the fifth.

Elliot Henson, whose game has improved so much this season, played Phil Butler. The latter had to come from 2-0 down to eventually win in a great game of squash.

In another close match, Magnus Lamprecht narrowly managed to get the better of Douglas Jacobsson 12-10 in the fifth game.

The plate final between the 17th and 18th players, Crossley and Steve Baker, was very close. Three of the five games went to two clear points at 10-all, with Baker narrowly pipping his opponent 13-11 in the fifth.

The semi-finals saw number one seed Mead beat Levy 3-0 but the other last-four clash was a tremendous five-setter between two of the best young island players, Thom Whiteway and Patrick Fitzpatrick. Whiteway won a very entertaining match 11-5 in the fifth.

Therefore, the final was between Mead and Whiteway. Although Mead won 3-0, the result does not justify the calibre of the match as both players used all the court and played a great variety of shots with some fantastic retrieving.

In addition, a round robin was played for players ranked 29th-33rd which Andy McLarney won after beating all his opponents.

Isle of Man Squash Rackets Association would like to thank Utmost Wealth for its continued support of the championships and also all the competitors for making the event such a memorable occasion.

Three out of the top four in this competition now head to Gibraltar to represent the Isle of Man in the European Team Championships.