Sean Murphy won the IACT PSA Satellite tournament at Fitzwilliam on Sunday, beating Brian Byrne in a four-game, all-Irish final that lasted 59 minutes.
The 22-year-old moved into a 2-0 lead with 11-4 and 11-6 games and while the third went Byrne’s way 11-5, Murphy [pictured left, above, with Byrne] took the spoils 11-7 in the fourth.
His run to victory in the 16-player tournament began on Saturday morning with a routine 3-0 win over Carl Crowe that lasted just 21 minutes.
Murphy’s quarter-final later that day took three times as long as an exciting five-game thriller with Michael Creaven, which required 64 minutes and an 11-5 win in the fifth.
Sunday started with a straight-game semi-final win over Alex Smith, Murphy needing just 33 minutes to carve out the 3-0 win over an opponent who had beaten Samuel Hann and Dean Dromgoole in short 3-0 matches on Saturday.
In the bottom half of the draw, Byrne enjoyed a straight game win over Tyler Dromgoole before needing four games – the second an extended 17-15 score – to get the better of the visiting English player, Robert Thirst. Byrne then picked off Jack O’Flynn in his semi.
O’Flynn went on to clinch third place overall, beating Smith in five in their play-off, while Dean Dromgoole finished fifth.
The lower-place matches featured an intriguing ninth-place clash between Aaron Knox and Frank O’Flynn, two players who recently represented Ireland at the World Squash Junior Championships in Cairo.
O’Flynn jumped into a 2-0 lead before Knox responded to win the match by reeling off three games on the bounce.
Knox had pushed Thirst for 48 minutes in the round of 16 before losing 3-1, but he went on to have 3-0 wins over Tyler Dromgoole and Danny Jones in the 9/16 section before beating O’Flynn in five.
