NORTH MIDDLESEX LEAGUE CLOSED TOURNAMENT
Ellenborough Table Tennis Club 14th to 18th February 2011
Despite a disappointingly sparse entry of only 47 entries, most of which were received after the closing date, and which statistically was the fourth lowest number of entries received since I started recording them in season 1992/3, the above event can be considered as a success, and I think was very much enjoyed by all those who did take part. However the Committee will be considering all of the options open to them for the future of this event and hopefully any proposals can be debated at the AGM.
On the first night we had the Handicap, Hard Bat and Division 3/4 Singles. This was preceded by a number of visits by me to the premises of Sports Direct and a contact by Harold Webb via the Internet to that company, due to it having been discovered late in the day that the League no longer owned any hard bats, the previous collection having in some way become too decrepit to use, I am pleased to say that a box of the precious implements was delivered by Sports Direct to Harold at about 6pm on the day of the event!
Harold himself decided to enter the Division 3/4 Singles and very proudly succeeded in reaching the Final where he was rather apprehensive to find himself having to play the 12 year old Ryan Williams. Unknown to Harold this young man is getting rather good, and I have selected him to represent the League in the shortly to be contested Russell Grant Trophy event [for Inter-League junior players]. Having said all that I can report that the Final was a closely contested match and both players can be congratulated. The younger legs of Ryan prevailed eventually with a 5 game victory score line of 10, 6, -9, -14 and 4
It was Ryan again who fought his way through to the Final of the Handicap Singles, although to be fair, he was assisted by a Division 4 starting advantage of plus 15 points. Fortunately for him he met on his way to the Final mainly opponents similarly favoured. However he had to survive a battle royal in the Final, where he had to play his fellow Ellenborough junior Charlie Charalambous and had to pull out all the stops in order to win19, -20, 19 and 17.
All of the Hard Bat specialists turned up for a session with the newly bought weapons [although they were lucky that the master of the craft, Derek Balding was no longer involved] However two absolute experts got through to the Final namely Gary List [Mayfield] and Russell Stone [Ellenborough]. They put on a brilliant display of the special skills required even to get the ball over the net with the strange implement never mind winning points Gary won -8, 9, 6 and 8
Tuesday night saw a big turn out for the Open Singles where the hot favourites were Jonathan Proffitt and his brother Simon [85% and 91% respectively in the Premier Division] They strolled into the semi-finals where they usually have little trouble in casting aside whoever comes through to play them. Simon was first in the ring against 16 year old rising star Bradley Tuttle and that was the end of Simon's run because Bradley cheekily beat him in straight games 5, 9 and 7. Worse was to come for the family's trophy cabinet because Jonathan's opponent was the 12 year old prodigy Vincent Stacey. What then happened is that Vincent played brilliantly and won a splendid match -11, 6, 10 and 10. The Final itself was not as spectacular as it might have been. When Bradley is in the mood a lot of his close matches are akin to exhibition events and certainly the middle game against Vincent was of this nature, won by Bradley 16-14. Unfortunately this must have broken Vincent's nerve because the final score line 5, 14 and 1. Nevertheless there is no doubt that in a few year's time Vincent might well be beating everybody.
The Veteran's Doubles was also played on this Tuesday evening and Simon and Jonathan Proffitt went home a little happier after seeing off Semi Idowu and Clifford Grant in the Final of this event by 2, 9 and 3.
On Wednesday night we had 7 different Veterans' and Junior events to stage. The main one was probably the Junior Boys Singles Predictably the finalists were Bradley Tuttle and Vincent Stacey although Vincent only got there after a very hotly contested semi-final against Daniel Wright with Vincent winning 9, 8 and 9. The Final was quite different to the one in the Open Singles and was a tremendous match won by Bradley 8, 6, -10 and 9
The Cadet Singles saw the second meeting between Daniel Wright and Vincent Stacey and this time it was Daniel who came out on top after a great battle 8, 4.-10, -7 and 9.
Unfortunately there were only two girls present to contest the Junior Girls Singles and Samantha Lai beat Denise Payet 4, 5 and 10. However there were plenty of boys to take part in the Junior Boys Doubles event and Sam Cowan at last got his name on the scoreboard by winning this event partnered by Daniel Wright. Their opponents were the pretty powerful pairing of Bradley Tuttle and Ryan Gaveolia, so it was a pretty good win for Sam and Daniel by scores of 7, -9, 8 and 6
Finally on this evening there were three Veteran's events. The main one was the Over 40's Singles won by Jonathan Proffitt who beat his brother Simon 7, 10, -6 and 7. Then there were the Over 60,s and the Over 70,s events both of which were won by somebody who has been winning matches at this Tournament for many years, namely Alan "Digger " Lamprell. Another golden oldie, Stan Smith, was his opponent in both Finals, the scores being 8, 6 and 8 in the first match and 9, 3 and 8 in the second.
The week's play ended on the Thursday with the Ladies Singles, Ladies Doubles and Mixed Doubles. The Ladies Singles was the best numerically [7] and was won deservedly by junior player Samantha Lai who beat her slightly higher ranked friend Eda Aydin by 6, 7 and 5 in the Final. Eda also featured in the Final of the Mixed Doubles in which partnered by Daniel Wright they beat Semi Idowa and Sureyya Aydin [Eda's mum] by scores of 11, 7 and 9. Only 4 ladies could be found to contest the Ladies Doubles, and this event was won by Eda Aydin and Denise Payet who beat Jenny Barton and Sureyya Aydin 4, 3 and 7.
I must not forget to say that the Open Doubles was contested on this final evening and it was won by Jonathan Proffitt ans Vincent Stacey who beat Bradley Tuttle and Sam Cowan by scores of 9, -7, -3, 10 and 7.
Alan Shepherd
Tournament Organiser |
