Guildford Table Tennis Association News No.14

Published on: 4 Apr, 2019
Updated on: 4 Apr, 2019

By John Diggens

The Guildford Table Tennis League has seen the ‘match of the season’ played out at Shackleford Village Hall, between Burymead A and Merrow A.

Both teams are vying for second spot in the Premier Division. Your correspondent was in attendance and can attest to the high quality and passion of the encounter.

Merrow’s John Robinson.

Table tennis at its very best! John Robinson was unbeaten with a clean sweep of singles victories; however, he was taken to deuce in the fifth with a brilliant display of stroke play by Mark Handcock.

2017 over 80s European Champion Ramesh Bhalla also took a set off Robinson. Phil Snelson, although below his best form, still managed a couple.

Merrow’s Richard Seymour.

Burymead’s Ramesh Bhalla.

What clinched a 6-4 win for Merrow was a real humdinger of a doubles with Richard Seymour and Martin Townshend coming back from the dead at two sets down to win at 11-9 in the decider. Whew!

Burymead’s Phil Snelson.

In the First Division, Challoner A suffered a severe setback to their promotion hopes only drawing with Aftermath A, six places below them in the table. A glance at the scorecard, full details of which are on the GTTA website, www.gttl.co.uk. shows what a battle this was with six matches going the distance. Steve Collins got an impressive maximum with Neil Harden getting two for the Fairlands club.

The Third Division match of the week was the clash between the top two resulting in a predictable draw. Top of the averages, James Wyncoll, got a full house for Ash.

Woking C put something of a crimp in Abinger’s promotion hopes in Division Four taking the evening 7-3 with Simon Reed and Andrew Bramwell unbeaten on the night.

Performance of the week in this Division was Trevor Free’s virtuoso three against Bramley F in Merrow H’s 6-4 success. Richard Phelps continues to improve with two excellent wins for the Bramley club.

Guildford Junior League (Clausura) – Round 7

Report by Adam Laws

The Top Spinners clinched the Guildford Junior League (Clausura) title with a 4-1 win over J².

Impressively, they managed to achieve this without having played their game in hand yet. In their latest match Vincent Quiambao won a brace against James Scott and Joss Beedie to finish the season unbeaten.

J²’s win came from James who defeated Owain Osmond-Gillam in three close games.

Apertura champions Merrow Demons finished the season strongly with their second successive 5-0 win, this time against VTC.

Henry Evans and Tom Gartner of Merrow Demons.

Tom Gartner and Henry Evans each won two and combined to take the doubles against Vlad Cretu and Thomas Alderton-Bailey. The closest contest was the battle of the Toms – Gartner just edging it 11-7 in the fourth against Alderton-Bailey.

Merrow Hawks finished the season in third place with a hard fought 3-2 win over the Overtakers.

Joe Sparkes scored two wins over the Hawks’ Dan Godsill and Dominic Wright but the latter pair hit back – each with a win apiece over Charlie Everingham. They then combined to take the doubles 11-6 in the fourth game.

The Thunderbolts achieved their third win of their debut season against Christ’s College.

Ben Everingham debuted for the ‘bolts, but he missed out against Tom Hall (3-0) and Micah Hall (3-1).

The Kepa brothers have gained valuable competitive experience in the Clausura league and showed the results of this in the other matches: Kyle Kepa won his two singles against Tom and Micah. Then he paired up with brother Anton to snatch a tight doubles 11-4 in the decider.

Match scores:

The Thunderbolts 3 – Christ’s College 2

VTC 0 – Merrow Demons 5

The Overtakers 2 – Merrow Hawks 3

J² 1 – Top Spinners 4