Report from Cicely Palmer – Secretary of Herefordshire
Email – cis @ forwil.co.uk
At Queen Elizabeth’s High School, Bromyard on Friday 20th March The Herefordshire County Table Tennis Finals were played watched by an appreciative number of spectators.
The evening started with the two semi-finals of the Men’s Singles event. One was between Mark Owen, going for his 23rd title, and Andy Castle which Mark won by 3, 8 and 8. The other saw Ola Anderson beat Dave White by 4, 8 and 6. This was the first of six events that Dave White was playing in and was to prove to be his only loss of the evening.
The Cadet Boys match was between Jake Conod and Ryan Knight. The standard was amazingly high for the age group and ended with Jake winning by 6, 1, -10 and 13. This promises well for the future of the sport and the same can be said for the Junior Boys event which was won by defending champion, Oliver Farr, by -8, 9, 6 and 10 over Ben Davis with some really good quality play.
The Junior Boys’ Doubles was between twin brothers Oliver and Mark Farr, and Jake partnered by Joe Burnet. This proved to be a cliff hanger from start to finish with the Farr brothers, after finding themselves two games to one down, winning by 7, -7, -5, 9 and 9.
The Veterans Singles was won by Dave White over Mark Conod by 3, 5 and 4 and in the Restricted Veterans Singles Dave beat Richard Madrell by 8, -4, 6 and 1. In the Veteran Doubles Dave teamed up with Alan Salisbury against defending title holders, Steve Knight and Harry Jutle, to take the title from them by 3, 3, -6 and 9.
The Super Veterans title went for the third time in four years to Bob Trimble after he beat Neville Meredith by 9, 7 and 8.
Ann Barnes and newcomer to our County, Gabriela Majorosova, met in the Ladies’ Singles with Ann regaining the title she won in 2005 and 06 by 5, 6 and 11 and they then partnered each other to win the Ladies Doubles comfortably against Margaret Shock and Gillian Davies.
Ann was next partnered by Dave White in successful mixed doubles against Gabriela and Steve Knight with a score of 6, 9 and 3 and the event for anyone in the Hereford League except the top 10 players had Ann on the table again – this time facing Jason Million. This was a great game with Ann coming back from 2 games to love down to win by -6, -8, 5, 7 and 9.
Dave was also in the restricted open singles opposite Toby Eckley which proved to be really tight until the final game. Dave won the first two games by 13 and 9 but then lost the next two by 7 and 3 and in the fifth game won it 11-2.
Andy Castle and Mark Owen, who have won the Men’s Doubles on four previous occasions including last year. In this year’s final met Toby Eckley and Ola Andersson. Toby and Ola had also won the title in 2007 so it was expected to be a good match and as it proved with Toby and Ola winning by 7, 9, -5 and 8.
The last match of the night was, fittingly, the Men’s Singles which was between Mark Owen and Ola Andersson. This match is played over the best of 7 games. Ola won the first to 7 but Mark came back strongly to win the second to 3 and only narrowly lost the third to 9. The fourth and fifth games – and the title - were then won by Ola by 4 and 9.
Report from Cicely Palmer – Championships Secretary – Telephone 10684 540 595
Last Friday a number of spectators were entertained by a good standard of Table Tennis from players of all ages from Cadets, under 14, to Over 60’s at Queen Elizabeth’s School Bromyard.
Mark Owen won through to another Men’s final by beating Toby Eckley in straight games 9, 7 and 7 in the semi-final and in the final he met Andy Castle, who had beaten Lincoln Franklin by 5, 7 and 9 in their semi-final. The best of 7 games final saw Mark win his 22nd title by 9, 4, 4 and 7.
Mark and Andy paired with each other to play against Lincoln and Nigel Foreshew in the Men’s Doubles. Nigel and Franklin took the first game by 12.10 but Mark and Andy then took the next three games and the title by 6, 5 and 9.
The Ladies’ final was much closer Sue Segust just won the first game by 13.11 and the second by 11.7 but Margaret Shock pulled back by winning the next two games by 12.10 and 11.8. Sue then won the fifth game by 11.7 to take the title.
The player of the evening was Steve Knight who had five matches to play. In the Veteran section he played with Harry Jutle in the Doubles to beat Steve Brown and Dave Hamer by 7, 9 and 9, in the restricted vets singles he beat John Hunt by 9, -12, 8, -9 and 8 – the longest match of the evening – and he won the main Veteran Singles title against Mike Wheatley by 7, 5 and 8. He also played in both the Restricted Singles competitions. For anyone not in the top ten averages in the Hereford League he faced Bob Trimble and won by 6, 13 and 8 but the only match he lost was to Nigel Foreshew in the Restricted Open, for anyone who has not won that competition or the Men’s Singles, when Nigel won by 10, 3 and 9.
The only Veterans’ match not featuring Steve was the Super Veterans – for players over 60. This was another long and hard fought match with Bob Trimble eventually winning by 6, 5, -12, -10 and 9.
Sue Segust partnered Chris Martin to play in the Mixed Doubles against Margaret Shock and Brian Kitchener in another five game contest. Sue and Chris won by 4, -7, -6, 3 and 7.
For players in the second division in the Hereford League there is a separate competition and this was won by James Dance who beat Ian Slade by -9, 2, 6 and 4.
Oliver Farr won the Junior Boys title by beating his twin brother, Mark, by 5, 7 and 10 .
In the Cadet Boys’ final Andrew Reece played Ben Davis. Ben won the first game by 13.11 but Andrew won the next by 15.13 and the third by 13.11 and although the fourth game could have gone either way Andrew won it by 11.9.
