Draw for National Singles Championship published

News

National Singles Championship 2016

Finals (last 16) at St Paul’s School, Barnes, December 3rd/4th

Organiser Charlie Brooks has today published the draw for the final rounds of the 2016 National Singles Championship. To say it contains the cream of the game is something of an understatement; and, indeed, one senior member of the RFA has already described the prospect of these 16 players fighting it out for the top prize in Rugby Fives as ‘mouth-watering’.

There’s no better indication of the quality of the participants than the fact that no less than 10 of the top 13-ranked players in the country are taking to the courts at St Paul’s this coming weekend.

The top four seeds – defending champion Will Ellison, former champion Dan Tristao, 2014 runner-up Dan Grant and recently crowned student champion Ed Kay (all pictured above at the recent West of England Championships) – qualified by right, but it’s clear that the 12 who came through regional qualifying will challenge even these elite players. And probably cause some hard work for Dave Hebden, when he works out the next set of official rankings!

We’ve got the ‘old guard’ of Matt Cavanagh and John Minta, former champion and runner-up, respectively, but plenty of youth, too: Ben Beltrami, Matt Shaw, Ollie Arnold and Theo Parker are all still students, while very few of the others have yet to suffer the indignity of their 30th birthday.

For full details of the draw, click on the link below. And, keep an eye on the RFA’s Twitter feed over the weekend for details of the matches as they happen and – quite probably – some salacious off-court gossip!

2016 National Singles Championship Last 16 draw [PDF, 186KB – opens in separate window]