It capped an excellent week for Hopkins who had dominated all his matches throughout the competition.
He took early control of the final and dictated pace to a level that Hickling struggled to match.
Although Hickling gave everything there was little he could do against the relentless pressure.
Hopkins won 9-0, 9-1, 9-1.
‘I was pleased with the result,’ Hopkins said, ‘but I’d beaten Rob twice in the league already this year, so I was pretty comfortable in the match.’ The men’s veterans final saw old rivals Hugh Jones and Steve Law, respectively seeded 1 and 2, in an entertaining match that went to the wire.
Predictably, Jones was slow out of the blocks and Law took the early initiative with some good, controlled squash.
Jones moved into gear in the second game and started constructing the rallies to move Law around the court and dominate the pace and took the second and third games and looked to be heading for a 3-1 victory.
Law’s Australian grit surfaced and he played his best squash of the tournament in the fourth game, dominating a tiring Jones and starting to look like the winner – but Jones, CI champion at this level, can never be written off and he drew on his considerable experience and ground out a well-deserved 3-2 victory.
The men’s B final pitted the young, dynamic Harry Cadigan against experienced campaigner Neal Pickersgill.
Returning only recently from injury, Cadigan took immediate control and was far too quick onto Pickersgill’s legendary drop-shots, dominating the first two games and looking certain to win three straight.
However, Pickersgill had other ideas and gave Cadigan something to think about in the third, then dug deep to take the fourth and level the match.
Perhaps it was youth that told in the end as Cadigan came out for the fifth like a whirlwind, and Pickersgill had no reply to the increase in pace.
Cadigan won 3-2.
Youngster Olly Duquemin took on Jon Richardson in the men’s B plate final, after a very successful week when he beat several good players and also reached the U19 boys final.
Both players moved around the court superbly, picking up some awesome shots in a highly entertaining match but Duquemin’s improvement over the last 12 months gave him the edge and he wrapped it up 3-1, despite Richardson’s athletic play.
In the other finals Ian Stewart beat Ray Hockey 3-1 in a fiercely competitive veterans plate while Martyn Scriven won the equally hard-fought men’s vintage competition, beating Gordon Burgis 3-1.
In the U19 boys final John Le Maistre took on a tired Olly Duquemin, playing in his second final of the afternoon, but the older Le Maistre was stronger and took the title 3-0.
A disappointing ladies entry meant the competition was run as a round-robin, Adèle Kapp finishing in top spot and Rowena Hockey the runner-up.
The U14 mixed was run in round-robin league format with winners and runners-up going through to semis.
In the main match Allan Magee, who shows much promise for the future, proved too powerful for opponent Andrew Rabet and won 3-0.
In the plate final Ashley Aziz beat Shane Lynch by the same score.
