Kinnaird Cup 2025
16/03/25: This year's Kinnaird Cup competition got underway over the weekend, back at Eton after a year away.
29 pairs entered this year's tournament, a pleasing increase on last year's entry, ensuring a field containing a lot of depth and quality and some tough matches right from the start. The thirteen first round matches produced some excellent Fives but no real shocks to speak of. Nor were there the usual one or two titanic first morning five setters with every match ending with a 3-0 scoreline, the closest match being a 12-9, 12-9, 12-10 win for Emily Scoones & Ben Merrett over Adam Field & Tancred Campbell, with Emily & Ben earning themselves a crack at the number one seeds in Round Two, while Adam & Tancred looked to regroup and target a win in the Pepperpot Plate.
The afternoon Last 16 also produced some terrific Fives, unsurprising given the strength in depth of the field, with the fifth to tenth seeded pairs separated by only a handful of ranking points. The big guns at the top and bottom of the draw progressed comfortably, with thirteen times winners Tom Dunbar & Seb Cooley only allowing Emily & Ben to score one point while defending champions Riki Houlden & Hugo Young eased past Tom Gallagher & Joey Prior. Another former champion pair in third seeds James Toop & Matthew Wiseman were also in cruise control against Westminsters Alex Vinen & James Alster but fourth seeds Sunil Tailor & Charles Plummer had to work hard against top Olavian schoolboy pair Tanish Arjaria & Aadi Agarwal, who pushed the Millhillian pair to 12-10 in the third game. Fifth seeds Chris Hughes & Sam Welti played well to navigate a potentially tricky tie against Isaac Weaver & Fred Prickett and sixth seeds Vishal Bhimjiyani & Alex Abrahams held off a third game fightback from the Bhattacharya brothers to win in straight games. The other two matches provided the greatest drama of the day as father and son pairing Howard & Gwydion Wiseman took on Ed Taylor, playing with fellow Salopian Luke Lloyd-Jones in the absence of his usual partner Noah Caplin (at a family wedding in Ireland) and two in form pairings came up against each other perhaps a round earlier than they would both have liked, with Ryan Perrie & Jack Pemberton pitted against Laurie Brock & Tom McCahon. Ed & Luke got the upper hand in the early stages of their match against the Wisemans, but the momentum shifted in the third as Howard & Gwydion tightened up their game and began to find their range to win 12-7; their momentum stalled in the fourth, however, as Ed & Luke retook a grip on the match to run out 3-1 winners. Momentum shifts were also the order of the day in the final match, with Laurie & Tom racing out of the blocks at the start of their match to fly into a 9-2 lead. Back came Ryan & Jack, though, all the way to a 13-11 win, a reverse which rather took the wind out of Laurie & Tom's sails as Ryan & Jack bossed the second game to go 2-0 up. The third was tight all the way through, but Ryan & Jack kept their noses in front for the majority of the game and closed it out 14-12 for an excellent victory against opponents who perhaps deserved more from their day's work.
One of the great features of the Kinnaird weekend is the Pepperpot Trophy competition for pairs who lose in the first round, a trophy which has been won by some of the biggest names in the sport at various stages of their playing lives as well as also being a career highlight for some good club players who were never going to be in contention to win the Kinnaird itself, but who were able to earn some well-deserved recognition with a Pepperpot win. This year's competition was a vintage edition, with 13 pretty evenly-matched pairs fighting it out in a knockout test of skill and endurance to get their hands on the trophy. The five pairs who fell at the first hurdle went into Plate B - a quickfire Round Robin which produced a final match decider between Brigands Tom Leach & Alex Knight and Lancing Old Boys Matt Davis & Ed Habershon, the younger legs of the Lancing duo perhaps the decisive factor as they triumphed 12-10, finishing ahead of Cambridge duo Jamie Levinson & Lewis Drummond, scratch pairing Theo Seely & Ollie Avery and Newbury brothers James & Christopher Tye.
The eight remaining pairs featured last year's winners and runners-up, but they both fell at the quarter-final stage this time round, Ipswichians Alex Phillips & Elliot Caldwell losing narrowly to Nick Choustikov and 2023 champion Viral Gudiwala and ladies champions Karen Hird & Charlotta Cooley losing by a similar close scoreline against Viral's 2023 partner Adam Field & Westway's Tancred Campbell. The other two quarter-finals featured young up and coming Olavian pairs, U16s Oscar Rushton & Henry Etherington coming from a game down to beat Newbury's Jack Hopkins & Poom Hall in three, and U15s Luke Whitnall & Krivi Bhavsar unable to make much of an impression on Oxford's Joel Robb & Jonah Poulard, their 12-11, 14-12 first round win over Drummond & Levinson clearly taking a lot out of them.
Henry & Oscar's race was run in the semis, as they went down 4 and 6 to the increasingly impressive Field & Campbell, while the other semi-final between Oxford present and Cambridge past was perfectly poised at one game all and five points all when Joel & Jonah hit the wall and saw the deciding game run away from them in favour of Nick & Viral. This meant the the 2023 champions were back in the final again, but this time on opposite sides. The final - at the end of a long and tiring day - was the archetypal game of two halves. For the vast majority of the first game, Nick & Viral were in charge, with Adam & Tancred rather tentative and their opponents winning the set piece battle and finding more winning shots from both front and back court. At 11-6 up it looked as though the first game was theirs for the taking....before suddenly everything changed, Adam & Tancred broke free of the shackles and ran off 20 unanswered points, going from 6-11 to 14-11 to win the first and then rampaging through the second game at a rate of knots as Viral & Nick's challenge faded to round off an excellent day's Fives with a trophy for Team Westway.
The Festival competition on Sunday was a smaller one this year, with just ten pairs, but produced a fabulous day's Fives, with the majority of the pairs very evenly matched and the winner - or indeed even the semi-finalists - almost impossible to predict right up to the last minute. Two groups of five in the morning produced some thrilling matches, with father and son pairing Bill & Elliott Christie topping Group B thanks to a 15-13 win over Elana Garfield-Osen & Dom Redmond, who held on to second place despite strong challenges from Ipswichians Alex Yusaf & Alex Williams and Westminsters Alex Vinen & Pranav Shah. Group A was even tighter with the top four positions only decided by the last couple of points of the last couple of matches. There was a threeway tie for the top spot, with points difference putting Ashley & Chris Lumbard through in first place, Peter Boughton & Sam Cook through in second and Matthew Beard & Ed Porter unlucky to miss out in third. Peter & Sam actually managed three 15-13 results in the space of four matches (two wins, one defeat); it made a refreshing change for Peter to be keeping everyone waiting due to the length of his matches rather than the length of his coffee stops at South Mimms...
Peter & Sam were determined to keep following this path and actually managed to up the ante in their semi-final against the Christies, taking this one all the way to 14-14 before their high wire act finally came to an end with a win for Bill & Elliott. The other semi-final pitted familliar festival foes Ashley & Chris and Dom & Elana, with this one turning out to be less close than some of their previous encounters, with Ashley & Chris winning 15-8. In keeping with such an unpredictable topsy-turvy tournament, the final went against the formlines as Bill & Elliott, having scraped through their semi, suddenly hit their best run of form of the day and Ashley & Chris - comfortable winners in their semi - couldn't find an answer, father and son defeating husband and wife 15-5. This completed a notable double for Bill Christie, who added the Kinnaird Festival title with son Elliott to the Northern festival title won a few weeks ago in Shrewsbury with his other son Connor.
The other six pairs, meanwhile, were playing a series of knockout matches themselves, which culminated in three finals. The Plate A semi-finals were two more nailbiters, the Ipswichian Alexes losing 13-15 to the improving Matt Davis & James Tye and Matthew & Ed taking out their frustration at missing a semi-final place on points difference on Alex & Pranav, with a 15-11 win. This meant two rematches to finish the day with Matt & James gaining revenge for their morning defeat at the hands of Matthew & Ed in the Plate A final and Alex & Alex repeating their morning win over Alex & Pranav in Plate B. This left the Plate C final, with Ipswich U14s Betsy Laws (newly crowned U14 national champion) & Anastasia Moore up against Oxford students Cyril Schroeder & Anthony Adamson. Anthony is new to the game and has made real progress very quickly and alongside Luxembourg's number one Fives player in Cyril, he followed a narrow 10-12 first game loss with an excellent 12-9 second game win. The final was decided by a first to 8 deciding game and although the students took an early lead, the Ipswich girls came storming through to win 8-4.
Sunday's other entertainment saw the main competition quarter-finals take place, at least three of them anyway, a family commitment meaning Vishal Bhimjiyani & Alex Abrahams were unable to take on James Toop & Matthew Wiseman, who took the opportunity for a practice match as well as some intensive preparation for Toop jr's Aberconway Cup debut in a few weeks time. The top two seeds have dominated the major tournaments for the past three seasons and have often cruised through at the quarter-final stage, but this was certainly not the case this year. Riki Houlden & Hugo Young were always in control of their match against Ed Taylor & Luke Lloyd-Jones, but the Salopians - with Luke in particular new to this level of competition - can take great satisfaction in their performance, reflected in the scores of 8,7 and 4. Top seeds (by virtue of their 3-0 win in the Northern final) Seb Cooley & Tom Dunbar were up against Eton coach Ryan Perrie and Berkhamstedian U21 Jack Pemberton. Once Tom Dunbar - an overnight press sensation 25 years in the making* - had fulfilled his media commitments for the Times, he and Seb soon realised that they were in a real battle against opponents at the absolute top of their game. Ryan & Jack threw everything they had at Tom & Seb for three games, with Ryan's all-round game in fine fettle and Jack's volleying catching the eye and the multiple champions had to dig deep and fight hard to stay ahead, especially in a very tight second game. They did it, though, showing they still have plenty of desire as well as plenty of fuel in the tank, winning 5, 10 and 8 to reach yet another semi-final.
The fourth quarter-final pitted the fourth and fifth seeds against each other and not unsurprisingly produced the longest and closest match of the weekend. The lower-ranked pair - Salopians Chris Hughes & Sam Welti - got off to a great start against Sunil Tailor & Charles Plummer, imposing their trademark attacking game on their opponents to go into a 9-1 first game lead. Sunil & Charels did manage to get a foothold in the game, closing to 6-9 but Chris & Sam finished the job well to go a game in front. The second game proved both close and pivotal; Charles & Sunil got to 11 first but Chris & Sam levelled. The Mill Hill/QEB pair took the bold option of sudden death and there then followed a tense passage of play over several hands with both pairs returning gameball cuts on several occasions but unable to convert the opportunities, knowing that one shot could be the difference between 1-1 and 2-0. Eventually it was Sunil & Charles who found the winner to level the match, and Chris & Sam's disappointment at missing out so narrowly on a 2-0 lead clearly and understandably carried over into the third game, which quickly went the way of Sunil & Charles. The Salopians regrouped before the fourth game, however, and fought back impressively when they could easily have fallen away. Charles & Sunil had their noses in front for most of the fourth game, but never by much, and Chris & Sam then saved a couple of match points at 9-11 down before finding the finishing touches that had just eluded them at the end of the second game to win it 14-12 and take it to a decider. They couldn't keep that purple patch going, however, and with Charles & Sunil returning well and taking pace off the ball at the right times, they took control of the fifth game early on and never let go, taking it 12-2 to reach their first Kinnaird semi-final as a pair.
Our thanks go to Ryan Perrie and Eton for hosting the weekend, to Advanta Wealth for their continued sponsorship and to everyone who came along and played and supported and made it such an enjoyable weekend.
*all enquiries regarding autograph signings, personal appearances, supermarket openings and the like should be addressed to Tom's agent, a Mr S.Cooley, c/o Shrewsbury School.
Round One
E.Scoones & B.Merrett beat T.Campbell & A.Field 3-0 (12-9, 12-9, 12-10)
L.Brock & T.McCahon beat J.Tye & C.Tye 3-0 (12-0, 12-0, 12-0)
R.Perrie & J.Pemberton (8) beat V.Gudiwala & N.Choustikov 3-0 (12-1 ,12-0, 12-2)
S.Welti & C.Hughes (5) beat L.Whitnall & K.Bhavsar 3-0 (12-2, 12-0, 12-3)
I.Weaver & F.Prickett beat O.Rushton & H.Etherington 3-0 (12-5, 12-5, 12-2)
A.Agarwal & T.Arjaria beat K.Hird & C.Cooley 3-0 (12-1, 12-5, 12-4)
S.Tailor & C.Plummer (4) beat L.Drummond & J.Levinson 3-0 (12-3, 12-1, 12-4)
J.Alster & A.Vinen beat E.Caldwell & A.Phillips 3-0 (12-0, 12-3, 12-4)
A.Bhattacharya & A.Bhattacharya beat M.Davis & E.Habershon 3-0 (12-3, 12-3, 12-5)
V.Bhimjiyani & A.Abrahams (6) beat P.Hall & J.Hopkins 3-0 (12-4, 12-4, 12-6)
H.Wiseman & G.Wiseman (7) beat T.Leach & A.Knight 3-0 (12-9, 12-1, 12-2)
E.Taylor & L.Lloyd-Jones beat T.Seely & O.Avery 3-0 (12-1, 12-1, 12-1)
T.Gallagher & J.Prior beat J.Robb & J.Poulard 3-0 (12-5, 12-7, 12-4)
Round Two
S.Cooley & T.Dunbar (1) beat E.Scoones & B.Merrett 3-0 (12-1, 12-0, 12-0)
R.Perrie & J.Pemberton (8) beat L.Brock & T.McCahon 3-0 (13-11, 12-5, 14-12)
S.Welti & C.Hughes (5) beat I.Weaver & F.Prickett 3-0 (12-5, 12-8, 12-6)
S.Tailor & C.Plummer (4) beat A.Agarwal & T.Arjaria 3-0 (12-5, 12-6, 12-10)
J.Toop & M.Wiseman (3) beat J.Alster & A.Vinen 3-0 (12-2, 12-2, 12-2)
V.Bhimjiyani & A.Abrahams (6) beat A.Bhattacharya & A.Bhattacharya 3-0 (12-6, 12-2, 12-10)
E.Taylor & L.Lloyd-Jones beat H.Wiseman & G.Wiseman (7) 3-1 (12-5, 12-6, 7-12, 12-2)
R.Houlden & H.Young (2) beat T.Gallagher & J.Prior 3-0 (12-3, 12-5, 12-1)
Quarter-Finals
S.Cooley & T.Dunbar (1) beat R.Perrie & J.Pemberton (8) 3-0 (12-5, 12-10, 12-8)
S.Tailor & C.Plummer (4) beat S.Welti & C.Hughes (5) 3-2 (6-12, 12-11, 12-0, 12-14, 12-2)
J.Toop & M.Wiseman (3) beat V.Bhimjiyani & A.Abrahams (6) 3-0 walkover
R.Houlden & H.Young (2) beat E.Taylor & L.Lloyd-Jones 3-0 (12-8, 12-7, 12-4)
The semi-finals will be played at Eton at 2:30pm on Sunday 30th March
Pepperpot Plate
Round One
H.Etherington & O.Rushton beat J.Tye & C.Tye 2-0 (12-0, 12-1)
N.Choustikov & V.Gudiwala beat M.Davis & E.Habershon 2-0 (12-6, 12-1)
K.Hird & C.Cooley beat T.Seely & O.Avery 2-0 (12-4, 12-2)
L.Whitnall & K.Bhavsar beat L.Drummond & J.Levinson 2-0 (12-11, 14-12)
J.Hopkins & P.Hall beat T.Leach & A.Knight 2-1 (12-9, 9-12, 12-9)
Quarter-Finals
A.Field & T.Campbell beat K.Hird & C.Cooley 2-0 (14-11, 12-9)
H.Etherington & O.Rushton beat J.Hopkins & P.Hall 2-1 (7-12, 12-11, 12-5)
J.Robb & J.Poulard beat L.Whitnall & K.Bhavsar 2-0 (12-2, 12-0)
N.Choustikov & V.Gudiwala beat A.Phillips & E.Caldwell 2-0 (14-11, 12-8)
Semi-Finals
A.Field & T.Campbell beat H.Etherington & O.Rushton 2-0 (12-4, 12-6)
N.Choustikov & V.Gudiwala beat J.Robb & J.Poulard 2-1 (12-4, 8-12, 12-5)
Final
A.Field & T.Campbell beat N.Choustikov & V.Gudiwala 2-0 (14-11, 12-0)
Plate B
Round Robin
1. M.Davis & E.Habershon
2. A.Knight & T.Leach
3. L.Drummond & J.Levinson
4. T.Seely & O.Avery
5. J.Tye & C.Tye
Festival
Semi-Finals
A.Lumbard & C.Lumbard beat D.Redmond & E.Garfield-Osen 15-8
B.Christie & E.Christie beat P.Boughton & S.Cook 15-14
Final
B.Christie & E.Christie beat A.Lumbard & C.Lumbard 15-5
Plate A
Round One
M.Davis & J.Tye beat B.Laws & A.Moore 15-1
A.Vinen & P.Shah beat C.Schroeder & A.Adamson 15-2
Semi-Finals
M.Davis & J.Tye beat A.Yusaf & A.Williams 15-13
M.Beard & E.Porter beat A.Vinen & P.Shah 15-11
Final
M.Davis & J.Tye beat M.Beard & E.Porter 15-4
Plate B
A.Yusaf & A.Williams beat A.Vinen & P.Shah 15-8
Plate C
B.Laws & A.Moore beat C.Schroeder & A.Adamson 2-1 (12-10, 9-12, 8-4)
