Guildford Table Tennis Association News No.12

Published on: 17 Mar, 2019
Updated on: 17 Mar, 2019

Report by John Diggens

This last week a couple of intriguing ‘local derbies’ were played.

Burymead A’s Phil Snelson.

In the Premier, Burymead A and B fought out a draw with the B’s winning all four matches which went the distance. A feature was the surprise victory by Julie Lawrence over partner Phil Snelson.

Burymead B’s Julie Lawrence.

Aftermath A, near the bottom of Division One, lost 6-4 to their B side which is at the top. Trevor Sanders got his accustomed three while association Chairman Neil Harden got a duck.

Merrow F sailed on their merry way in the Second Division opening up a 17 point lead with a 10-0 annihilation of mid table Bramley B.

It’s difficult to see any other name on the trophy at the end of the season. However, there again we must consider the calorically challenged lady singer!

Challoner’s Steve Collins.

There was a thriller in the quarter final of the Handicap Cup with Challoner beating Godalming.

With the match score standing at 6-5 to Godalming, Challoner had to win the final doubles game to take the match to countback.

As it was, Challoner edged it by half a point to level the overall match score. Following a countback of all the points scored during the evening just six points, in favour of Challoner, separated the teams.

Guildford Junior League (Clausura) – Round 5

Report by Adam Laws

Only two points separate the top five teams in the league, with the top three teams each on 17 points.

The Top Spinners moved to the top of the table with an emphatic 5-0 over previous table-toppers Merrow Hawks, who move down to third place.

Vincent Quiambao and Owain Osmond-Gillam both won their singles against Dan Godsill and Dominic Wright and then combined to take the doubles. There were plenty of tight deuce games but they all went in favour of the Spinners who are surely now favourites to take the title.

J² and Merrow Demons were involved in a tremendous tussle that needed to be decided by the doubles. Birthday boy James Scott celebrated in fine style with two good wins over Henry Evans and Tom Gartner.

His success against the former was particularly impressive as he came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2. The scores were 7-11, 8-11, 13-11, 11-9, 11-9.

Tom and Henry both defeated Joss Beedie (Tom edging out another 3-2 battle) to make the score 2-2. Then somewhat unexpectedly, given what had gone before, the Demons took the doubles for the loss of only 16 points (11-5, 11-4, 11-5) to win 3-2.

Christ’s College were thrilled to achieve their first ever GJL win – 3-2 against the Overtakers, for whom Andrei Cherciu scored a brace of wins.

He was run incredibly close by Micah Hall who performed admirably but ultimately succumbed 11-9 in the fifth.

Andrei’s victory over Tom Hall was much more straight-forward – the scores were 11-3, 11-3, 11-8.

Both Tom and Micah defeated newcomer Abishek Sathiyanarayaran, who unluckily missed out in two tough five-setters. Then the Halls combined superbly to defeat Andrei and Charlie Everingham 3-0 in the doubles.

The final match saw the Thunderbolts vanquish the valiant VTC 5-0. Kyle and Anton Kepa won two each against Thomas Alderton-Bailey and Vlad Cretu and then joined forces to take the doubles.

Thomas and Vlad came closest to winning in the doubles, but at one game all they just missed out in a tight third end, 12-10 which proved key as the Kepas took the fourth end 11-5 to win 3-1.

Match scores:

Christ’s College 3 – The Overtakers 2

VTC 0 – The Thunderbolts 5

J² 2 – Merrow Demons 3

Top Spinners 5 – Merrow Hawks 0