TABLE TENNIS NEWS

May 2006

by Dave Banks

The Bristol league tournament took place on 12^th March at the new Filton venue, with some thrilling encounters taking place in the senior and junior events. In the open singles, Daniel Ives managed to get the upper hand in the final against Shaun Hall- but this result was reversed in the junior boys singles final! The ladies singles was a good, tightly fought event, with Gill Beer winning through against Michelle Leonard in the final. In the junior girls singles final, Rebecca Seal had a close win against Hayley Ruderham.

In the Bath league championships, Terry Parkins was in superb form, beating Alan Champneys in four in the open singles and Bob Murray in the veteran singles, 12-10 in the fifth, after being two games down.

On the 18^th March, the junior county teams had their last round of matches at Okehampton and although the first team managed to win all of their games, disappointingly they could only finish 2^nd in the table, just one point behind Cornwall 1^st. The 2^nd team managed to finish in 6^th place.

An exciting day of top table tennis took place on 25^th March at the National Regional Junior Finals, held at Filton. In the U15 category, David McBeath and Hannah Hicks won the boys and girls finals respectively, with the Avon players Alex Kearney and Alex Banks playing well to finish in second place in their groups.

The final senior county match of the season took place on 1^st April in Worcester, beginning with a 7-3 win against Cornwall 2nds. This was followed by  heavy defeats against Cornwall 1sts and Worcester, with Alex Banks playing exceptionally well, taking the only rubber against a much higher ranked Zia Khan.

On 2^nd April, the annual Avon Closed junior tournament was staged, with some promising youngsters taking part.In the U12 events, Niall Mordecai and Alice Gregory won the boys and girls singles and in the cadets, Alex Banks and Jessica Coggins were the winners. In the juniors, Lloyd Gregory and Hayley Ruderham both played well to win, in closely fought finals.

On the league front, in Bristol, Failand A won the premier division, with Knowle A as runners up. Steve Hall and Eddie Roofe topped the averages. In the Bath league, Oldfield B scraped the winners spot over Mayfield A, Michelle Cohen and Clive Ellison having the highest averages.