Report: James Carman at the Junior British Championships

The Junior British Championships in Nottingham is James’s last tournament in the U15 age group as he moves up to the U17 age group on November 26th. It turned out to be his best ever tournament with a 4th place, so a great one to end on.

James has been moving steadily up the U15 England rankings over the last couple of years and has made amazing progress on many aspects of his game and on his fitness.

He has been guided expertly by Lucas and has really benefitted from the high performance coaching that Middlesex have organised through Paul Carter. He has also been attending the Aspire training sessions led by Phil Rushworth so has had plenty of quality input into his game.

James was seeded 9-16 in the tournament and won his first two matches comfortably, though he was nursing his ankle that he had turned over on Tuesday evening in a club team match! Things got more challenging for his third match when he came up against Scotland’s number one – Kyle Penman. James went 2-0 down and fought back to win 3-2.

In the quarter finals, James met Elliot Kelly from Ireland, where he went 2-0 up and 8-6 up in the third and then lost games 3 and 4. James pulled through in the 5th to get to the semi final against England’s number one (and tournament winner) Jonah Bryant. Jonah was too strong for James, so James ended up playing for the 3rd/4th play-off against England’s number 3 Yusef Sheik. Alas, Yusef showed his class and was too strong.