Guildford Table Tennis News Week 18

Published on: 14 Feb, 2020
Updated on: 14 Feb, 2020

By John Diggens

In the Guildford Table Tennis League Premier Division at played at Christ’s College there was a finely balanced match between second placed Godalming B and third placed Burymead A.

Starting with a bang, Burymead’s Tim Waller took out Rob Pountney with his lively attacking play and his whipped backhand loop a positive joy to behold.

At evening’s end a comfortable max from Phil Snelson saw the Shackleford-based club with a five-all draw.

Charlie Cunningham was particularly unfortunate not to get two beating Waller but losing out to Paul Baker, making a welcome return to ‘top ping’, at deuce in the fifth.

The doubles saw a tense five setter, four going to deuce before Pountney and Cunningham finally settled matters.

In Division One, a ‘battle royal’ ensued no less than eight matches going the distance. Aftermath A edged it 6-4 with Godalming F just losing out.

Adit Ghandi.

Adit Gandhi starred with Jason Minoo desperately unlucky to end up pointless losing two at deuce in the fifth.

Jason Minoo.

Division Three and performance of the week was Nathan Tse’s. He scored superb three for middle of the table Godalming M against current leaders Merrow F , although eventually it was 6-4 to the village club!

The Guildford Junior League (Clausura) got under way on January 29 at Christ’s College, writes Adam Laws.

Nine teams are competing in the league – including three Farnborough teams and three Merrow teams: Plumbuses, Ash and Alex, the Ping Kings, Merrow Hawks, Merrow Demons, Merrow Merlins, Farnborough Flames, Farnborough Fires and Farnborough Lions.

Merrow Hawks made quick work of the Ping Kings 5-0. Henry Evans and Max Swindells both won their singles matches and combined to win the doubles against Thomas Alderton and Lucy Milner.

They are joined at the top of the table at this early stage by Farnborough Lions. Anton and Kyle Kepa won all their matches 3-0 except for Anton’s 3-1 win over Alex Evans.

The other two matches were much closer affairs. The two debut teams, Farnborough Fires and Merrow Merlins were involved in a tight battle where three matches went the distance.

Thomas Dowson opened the scoring for Merrow with a fifth set victory over Abhinav Suri, who hit back with a five-set win of his own against Tanish Corey.

Tanish and Thomas both defeated Ciaran Johnson but he teamed up with Abhinav to win the doubles 11-4 in the fifth to reduce the arrears to 2-3.

Plumbuses won their first match over Farnborough Flames. Sasha Dow starred for Plumbuses’ with two wins over Oliver Sheen and Alborz Abutalebi.

Alborz and Oliver replied by scoring a win each over Santi Canals-Marti. The doubles was fittingly the closest match of the contest, and was decided at deuce in the final end – Sasha and Santi combined to win 12-10 in the fifth!