Durham and Cleveland junior players Lee Skinner and Katy Burgin performed well above expectations at the recent Scottish Junior Open and British Junior Open Championships.

Both tournaments attracted world-ranked players from Australia, USA, Pakistan, Egypt and Canada, with 221 players from 51 countries in the Scottish competition and over 500 players from 53 countries in the British competition.

Skinner, from Newton Aycliffe, finished seventh in the under-17 event in Edinburgh after beating Scottish player Andrew Jones 3-0 in the first round and seeded player Nial Caheny 3-0 in round two. But in round three the Durham and Cleveland player of the year's progress was stopped at the quarterfinal stage by the Australian number two Ben Reece. The Aycliffe player ended up as the third highest English player and later found he had reach 43rd position in the junior European squash rankings.

Katy Burgin, a student at Loughbough University, also reached the quarter-final stage of the under-19 girls event by beating the highly seeded Clare O'Brien of Ireland 3-0 before losing herself by the same score to the Australian Chenille Kelly.

In Sheffield for the British Open Skinner won his first three games against all Yorkshire opposition, Thomas Gudzelak 3-2, Jamie Sudcliffe 3-1 and a first ever win over the nationally ranked Mark Shepard 3-0, losing only 4 point in the process but eventually went out the seeded Joel Hinds from Derbyshire. Australian opposition again stopped Miss Burgin as the highly rated Kassy Brown eventually beat her after Katy had previously beaten Georgina Stoker.

Under-13 sensation Chris Allinson from Guisborough caused a shock in the under 13 boys event as he knocked out the seeded Rannit Tandon of India before falling to the Egyptian Bassen Ezz El Din in the next round. His disappointment was tempered by a call up to the England squad for the next series of national training sessions. Aycliffe's Graham Johnson was the fourth Durham and Cleveland competitor in the British open and was unlucky to meet stiff European opposition in the first round although he went on to win his next game 3-0 in the plate event.

Meanwhile, Durham & Cleveland Junior Squash teams with age groups of under 13/15/17 boys and under 15 girls travelled to Leicester last weekend to play friendly County matches against Nottinghamshire on the Saturday afternoon and Leicestershire on Sunday morning. The under-15 boys were whitewashed and under-15 girls could only manage one win with Heather Graham claiming a convincing 3-0 win for D&C. The top three seeds for the under-17 boys side looked travel weary and played accordingly losing with alarming ease, leaving the Nunthorpe pair of Ben Harrison and Richard Collins to salvage some pride for the county by both having 3-0 wins. The only bright spot of the day was the under-13 boys winning their match by 3-2 in a closely contested series of games.

Sunday's games against Leicestershire saw the refreshed D&C sides produce wins at all age groups apart from under-15 boys who went down 3-2.

At under-17 the Aycliffe pair of Lee Skinner and Graham Johnson playing at 1 and 2 were both back to winning ways with convincing 3-0 wins. Newcomer Kyle Garbut from Guisborough found it hard going at reserve despite competing bravely to lose 3-0 reversing his previous days result. The match of the weekend belonged to Aycliffe's Michel Burton coming back from 2-0 down to win a nailbiting third game 10-8 before winning the last two games for a 3-2 win.