Home page for Meteorology Department Squash Tournament V

This is a the home page for the fifth Meteorology Department Squash Tournament. Participants in the tournament are shown on the players, fixtures and results page with all the player's e-mail addresses, and the fixtures and results so far.

This page covers

• The Draw
• Deadlines
• Games
• The Trophy
• Noticeboard
• Squash Night
• Summary of Tournament V

The department squash tournaments are open to anyone in the Meteorology department and anyone on our squash ladder who are available to play squash for most of the end of the Autumn term and the Spring term. There's a wide range of abilities that take part, and the tournaments usually involves undergraduates, postgraduates and staff.

We use a fixture system (Monrad) which ensures that everyone plays a similar number of games. It works by trying to filter participants so that they're playing with people of a similar standard to themselves by the end of the tournament. It does this by ensuring that you play someone with the same record as yourself, so if your record is lose-win, i.e you lost in 1st round but won in 2nd round, you'll play someone in the 3rd round who's record is also lose-win. (Byes and any walk overs count as wins for this purpose). By the end of the tournament no will have same record. The person to win all their games wins the tournament.

This fixture system means that their are some big mis-matches in the early rounds, but this is a chance for less experienced participants to learn some skills, and hopefully some tips, of more experienced participants. However, there is no guarantee that you wont have your tightest match in the first round. We seed the tournament in an attempt to try and divide those players who've played a lot from those you haven't by the end of the early rounds.

The seeding is based mostly on the participants place on the department squash ladder, but participants not on the ladder who are recognised as strong players are sometimes seeded.

It is up to the participants to arrange their own games once they know who they're suppose to be playing. About 2 1/2 weeks is allowed to play each round. If there's a reason why a game can't be played by a deadline can you let the organiser Marc know. The organiser chases up the games which aren't completed on time but the tournament is much easier too run if as many people can play their games on time as possible. For the last round we try to book 2 squash courts out for one whole evening (Squash Night) and play as many of the last round matches on that night as possible.

After a match the participants should be able to enter the results on the players, fixtures and results page, but they can also either e-mail the result to the organiser or write the result on the noticeboard.

Good luck everyone and I hope you really enjoy it.

Cheers, Marc (marc@met.rdg.ac.uk, 3l50)

The draw will take place near the end of November. There's usually two sets of seeds - a top 8 and next 8 - which are kept apart until the 3rd round. Seeding is based mostly on position on the squash ladder.

Deadlines for games to be played are

Round	Deadline for players < 17	Deadline for players > 16
Round 1	1st December	1st December
Round 2	21st January	2nd February
Round 3	11th February	25th February
Round 4	4th March
Final Round	Squash Night on 15th March	Squash Night on 15th March

Anyone going on holiday etc. may obviously need longer, but it'll be helpful if all games are played as soon as possible

Games will be the best of five, and do not count to the squash ladder. The official rules for the very keen (I've not read them) can be found on the World Squash Federation page.

Games will be arranged between the players involved, and the results should be written up on the noticeboard.

Figurine in bad shorts will be presented to winner. He's lost an arm, since this picture was taken. Also, his socks are pulled up a bit too high for my liking and it's a very cheap trophy, but apart from all that, it's quality.

A list of players and fixtures is provided on both the noticed board in the coffee room and on these web pages.

Squash Night

Provided we can get courts 1 and 2 for one convenient evening then as many final round matches as possible will be played on one evening, which will be Squash Night. Players who are missing an opponent for the evening will be provided with some friendly opposition instead.