Individual Tournament Sets The Tone

14/09/26: This year's Individual Tournament started the 2026/27 season off in fine style at Eton yesterday.

The traditional season opener is not really a tournament as such, more a chance for the top players to shake off some early season rust and enjoy a day of good quality friendly matches with an opportunity to play in and against pairings that they don't usually see.

This year's tournament saw ten players sign up on the men's side - Riki Houlden, Hugo Young, Noah Caplin, Alex Abrahams, Tom McCahon, Adam Field, Aadi Agarwal, Tanish Arjaria, Henry Etherington and Oscar Rushton -  plus the late unexpected addition of this year's Cambridge captain Giles Holliday and pleasingly there was also a women's court this year with Charlotta Cooley, Zoe Wheale, Betsy Laws and Millie Hodgkinson playing their own match before joining in with the men to produce some exciting mixed games in the second half of the day.

Seven rounds of matches were played, with most producing extremely tight encounters and close results. Scores were recorded but the point of the day was very much not about producing a winner and the games were all plenty competitive enough without needing any additional push. It may not come as a huge surprise, however, that Riki managed to win all of his matches, whatever combination of partner and opponent the organiser decided to throw at him.

Thanks to Ryan Perrie and Eton for hosting the event and thanks to everyone who took part and made it such an enjoyable day.