THREE Northern Juniors - Michael Mattimore and Cai and Tegan Younger - mixed it with some of the best young players in the world at January's 2013 British Junior Open . . .
The biggest junior squash tournament on the planet - regarded as the unofficial world junior championships up to Under 17 level - was held across three Sheffield venues, including Hallamshire, home club of reigning World Champion Nick Matthew.
Northern's Michael Mattimore qualified for a 64-draw in the U15s while brother and sister Cai and Tegan Younger took on the cream of the Boys U17 and Girls U15s respectively.
Michael finished 41st out of 64 in his event, Tegan 43rd out of 48 and Cai 46th out of 72.
In a tournament which featured no less than 48 different nationalities, Michael's scalps included Welsh duo Joshua Lee and Liam Eason (nationally ranked 2 and 3 respectively) while he also won an epic 3-2 second round match against South Africa's Gavin Kaplan, and lost a close 3-0 defeat to one of Argentina's rising young squash starts, Juan Barreyro.
Tegan won against South African Amy Mentz and Welsh girl Kathryn Field, while she also put on a fine show in defeat to last year's English U13 finalist Rawan El Kalaawy.
Cai had a truly international tournament, taking on players from South Africa (Murray Commins), Spain (Iker Pajares) and Canada (Jack Greenwood). His wins came in the second round, over Argentine Luis Zapart Icart (ranked 5th in Argentina at U17) and Andrew Muran (ranked 12th in America - and coached on the day by a certain Peter Nicol).
