Apologies for the delay in acknowledging some sterling performances from our UCSC participants in the recently concluded SSRA Individual Graded 2011.

Ladies Premier: Our congratulations to Jerryca TEO for putting up a rousing performance in beating MAO Shi Yuan to emerge 3rd in her event.

Ladies' F: Natalie TAN has been quite a revelation, improving by leaps and bounds this season and her progress resulted in her emerging 3rd in the Ladies' F.

Ladies' Novice: Diminutive Nicole TONG showed she's one to look out for when she made it to the semi-finals before losing to eventual champion, WONG Hui Ling, in an exciting 5-setter, edged out agonisingly only by a narrow 8-11 loss in the rubber. Nicole made amends however in the 3rd/4th placing when she won 3-0 over Audrey CHAN to emerge 3rd.

Men's A: Top-seed, Samuel KANG, 'slipped' up in his quest to win the 2011 Men's premier event. He bowed out without having even played a single game. Skang injured his wrist during an ice-skating outing and had to concede a walk-over to Tim SOH in the 2nd round of the event, having had a 'bye' in the 1st round. 2nd seeded Marcus PHUA lost to Vivian RHAMANAN in their semi-final match but comfortably beat Timothy SOH 3-0 to emerge 3rd.

Men's C: Benedict CHAN justified his top seeding by strolling to the Men's C title without dropping a single game. While this was clearly an awesome result speaking of Ben's incredible progress since he first picked up a squash racket some short years back, special mention must be made of Jerryca TEO's performance to emerge 4th in the Men's C. Denting several men's egos enroute to the semi-final where she lost to dominant Ben, she narrowly lost to LOKE Yan Xuan in the 3rd/4th place play-off.

Men's D: Tyrone ALMEIDA once again demonstrated his fighting spirit when he went one better than his 3rd-seeding by beating 2nd-seeded Jonathan NG 3-1 before he lost to eventual champion, CHUA Man Tong, in the Final to emerge 1st Runner-Up.

Men's E: Jeremy GOH and Jason KYNOCH both put up excellently performances although they lost in the 2nd round and Qtr-Finals respectively. Both UCSC-sians lost narrowly in 5-setters to the same player, 2nd-seeded LIM June Quan, who progressed into the Final. FOO Chuan Kit put up sterling performances to enter the semi-finals before also losing to June Quan. However, Chuan Kit made amends when he eventually emerged 3rd in the event.

Men's F: Several of our players put up great performances despite losing at various stages of this event. '8' was not a lucky number for 4th-seeded Matthew HUI who lost to unseeded Gabriel ANG narrowly in a thrilling 5-setter during the 2nd round. The three sets which Matthew lost, were all by 8-11. The qtr-finals pitted another UCSC-sian young talent, Jason TONG, who also lost narrowly to Gabriel in another 5-setter. Gabriel must have felt that UCSC had an agenda against him when he crossed rackets against yet another UCSC-sian. This time top-seeded Timothy CALDER avenged his UCSC team-mates by beating Gabriel in another close and exciting 5-setter. In the Final, Tim went toe-to-toe against 2nd-seeded Nitin SHARMA. It was a worthy Final between the two top seeds who justified their billing. Tim lost the match in a nail-biting 5-setter which went to deuce in the rubber and won only 13-11 by Nitin. Still, it was a typical gritty performance by the never-say-die Tim.

Congratulations to all UCSC participants who demonstrated the Club spirit and put up such excellent performances.

UCSC Lives & Breathes Squash!