It was a night of major upsets on the eve of the finals of the Fast Forward Freight National Squash Championships last night.

The Men's A Consolation event saw Ryan Bell, eliminated in the quarter-finals, take on Nick Wiffen, who was eliminated in the semi-finals on Thursday night.

Surprisingly though, it looked as if Wiffen was still recovering from his semi-final match as he struggled to keep up with Bell and lacked his opponent's determination. Bell took the first two games 9-1, 9-2 before Wiffen got his game together.

Wiffen came back to take the third game 9-5, but in the fourth game Bell reasserted himself and ran out a comfortable 9-3 winner against the rankings.

There was an even bigger upset in the other semi-final as Harry MacKenzie played consistently good and intelligent squash against Tommy Sherratt, who lost in Thursday night's semi-final action against Nick Kyme.

MacKenzie, not known for his fitness, hung in gamely and dominated all the games, losing just the third 10-9 and winning the others 9-7, 9-2, 9-3.

Tonight he and Bell play off for third and fourth place.

In Ladies Veterans' play, Christine Barnes will be pleased with her 3-0 victory over Liz Martin against the odds - the scores being, 9-6, 9-5, 10-8.

In the Men's B event, Blair Quested and 14-year-old Michael Shrubb maintained their perfect records with 3-0 wins over Ken Savoury and fellow junior Richard Arnold respectively, to book their berths in this evening's finals.

The closest match of the night was the Men's B consolation semi-final between Eddie Redmond and Alistair McNeish.

The match, which lasted an hour, saw McNeish take the first two games by a narrow margin, 10-8 and 9-7. Redmond came back strongly in the third to win 9-3 and the fourth 9-7.

At this stage it looked as though Redmond was on his way to victory. He powered ahead to a 7-1 lead in the deciding fifth game, but then McNeish dug in.

In one run he recovered from 7-1 down to 7-5. Redmond recovered to 8-5 and served three times for the match but McNeish hung in there gamely.

He recovered from 7-8 down to lead 9-8 in one stretch and then it was Redmond's turn to defend. Redmond levelled the match at nine-all then McNeish won service and served for game, winning the rally and the match by the narrowest of margins.