The annual Maidenhead Closed Championships were completely dominated by the young guns of Cippenham on Saturday. A quartet of junior players expelled the old guard and swept up both of the major titles. Last year's champion. Maciej Dlugozima, was away and could not defend his title but there were plenty of other more established players in the field and they could do nothing against the speed and power of the youngsters.

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Only fifteen players competed for the blue riband event, the Open Singles, but the entry was strong, featuring most of the top players in the League. Top seed Michal Garski was the first to fall, beaten in his group by Sai Prasanna Kumar, the youngest player in the field. Michal did, however, progress from second spot in the group and then beat second seed Paul Savage in the quarter-finals. However, Michal met his match in the semi-final, beaten by 16-years old Louis Alexander who had to recover from losing the first two games of this enthralling encounter. Earlier, Louis, after winning his group, had eliminated the vastly experienced Gary Crick in the quarters.

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In the top half of the draw, Sai Prasanna Kumar saw off the challenge by the combination-batted Chris Collins in the quarters and then beat his doubles partner Troy Williams, who had earlier eliminated Sai's brother Bharath, 3-0 in the semi.

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That all set up a final between Sai and Louis but no-one anticipated the outcome! The final scores of 11-2, 11-8, 1--4 in favour of Sai were remarkable, especially when it is considered that, at the tender age of 10 years and 40 days he became by far the youngest player ever to win the title and, it is believed, in the youngest-ever final.

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The four youngers also battled it out for the doubles title with Bharath and Louis recovering from a game down to defeat Troy and Sai 3-1 in the final.

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For good measure, Bharath was also successful in the Handicap Singles event despite having to give points to most of the other players.