Herefordshire County Table Tennis Championships 2008
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.