Five Tees B 4-6 Medstead A Medstead A's Micky Lang sometimes favours a very high-thrown serve,
which isn't an option under Five Tees' low ceiling. No matter -
he won his 3 singles with room to spare, in straight sets.
Micky is the current Winchester Veterans champion.
Micky Lang
Five Tees A 6-4 Kings A
There's almost nothing to choose between 4 teams at the top of Division 1,
but Five Tees now lead the stampeding herd by a small margin.
David Wills's excellent season continued with 3 more Singles wins and a
contribution to the Doubles win.
Swanmore A 5-5 South Wonston A
The scoreline looks ordinary enough, but this was no ordinary match. Swanmore A
won the first 5 legs straight off the reel, but the first 4 were all
5-setters. Then South Wonston A suddenly stopped reeling and won the final 5 legs!
You can't explain that except in terms of the oldness and funniness of the
sport of table tennis. To cap it off, the total number of 5-setters (7) and points
played (837) were certainly among the highest of the past ten years. The 2 teams are first
and second in Division 2, so there was plenty at stake.
Winnall 4-6 IBM B
Further down the table, this was another well-fought match, with Iliya Dimitrov
helping his team over the winning line with 3 singles wins, as well as the Doubles.
Division 3
IBM C 5-5 Swanmore B Steve Coltman has had a bit of an up-and-down season, but this was an 'up'
occasion and he won 3 singles for Swanmore B. 4 5-setters were played during the evening, but
the match must have finished before 10 pm because there are no reports
of anyone peeping round the door and tapping their watch meaningfully or turning
lights off and on in the middle of ralleys.
Medstead B 5-5 Five Tees D
The Division 3 leaders have been neck-and-neck all season, and this match did nothing
to clarifiy the issue. A single point is all that distinguishes them.
Graham Lynch is back to winning ways after faltering momentarily 3 weeks ago
against Peter Tennant.
A lot of interesting matches played in an excellent spirit, very professionally planned and run by Cameron Brealey and his team of helpers.
7 events were run through to the Semifinal stage, leading to the prospect of a Finals Night on Saturday 4th May
at Itchen Abbas & Avington Village Hall that promises to be as good as ever. That's even though the current senior and Junior Singles
champions, Ed Slot and Jared Schaller, missed today's Heats. Medstead, Kings, Swanmore, Five Tees and IBM were all well represented in terms
of numbers and good-quality players.
Watch Planet Ping Pong - a fascinating
hour-long history of table tennis across the world, up to 2007.
But hurry - it's only available on BBC i-Player until about 6th October 2018!
Thanks to Tony Gregan for letting me know about it.
The first match was against Bournemouth B, which Winchester won 4-2.
The next round was against Southampton A, in which Winchester had some hard fought games and which resulted in a 3-3 draw.
The third round was against Reading (promoted from Div 2), which Winchester won 5-1 .
The next round was against Weymouth A, which Winchester won 4-2.
The fifth round was against Southampton A, in which they drew 3-3 .This resulted in the team coming equal 2nd with 19 points.
The team played exceptionally well with many games going to 5 legs. Many coaches present mentioned that all of the Winchester team had a good playing attitude,
and demonstrated an excellent command of the game.
Thanks to Martyn Davey for this report about Winchester Cadets (U15): "2nd Round of the National Cadets League held on December 3rd at Waterside Table Tennis Club, Totton.
The team was Ethan Cheung ,Will Agombar and Danny Klinger .
The first match was against Southampton A, in which the team played well and secured a score of 3-3.
In the 2nd match the team was up against the strong team of Bournemouth A in which
they were able to win only 2 games, which resulted in a 2-4 scoreline.
In the 3rd round against Bournemouth B, Will and Danny both won their games comfortably.
Ethan won a game and this resulted in a 5 - 1 win.
The next match was against a team that had come up from Div 2. After several hard fought games
the team secured a 6 - 0 victory .
The last match was against Weymouth A, who had not lost a game all day. Ethan played well and won his games;
Will was unfortunate to lose his match after taking his opponent to 5 legs, and lost 11-9 in the fifth.
The overall result was that the team finished 3rd in Div 1.
The Winchester team played very well with a good amount of skill and determination.
They each have a good attitude to the game and are to be commended on their performance and sportsmanship."
There are 20 teams and 4 Divisions in this region of the National Cadets League, so Winchester did really
well to come 3rd in Division 1,
including finishing above Southampton A! You can see all the details here.
Read Paddy Shephard 's reports Here. They
show how Westgate U13 won through to the Zone Winners event in Bournemouth on 4th March, then got very close to reaching the National Finals!
Westgate U13 Boys team
Winchester Schools did well in the Zone Finals of the Boys U11 (St Bede's), U13 and U16 (both of Westgate). The event
held in Morpeth School, London,
involved the Champion teams of Hampshire, Berkshire, East Sussex, Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey and Kent, by age-group.
Blake showed how hard and consistently he can hit when
he got the better of current Winchester Champion Ed Slot in the Handicap. Handicaps are designed to level the playing field,
so arguably the only real winners are the handicapping committee,
but Blake's start of +14 gave him an opportunity to attack from the start. Get to your seats early at Finals Night on Saturday
to see if he can reproduce that form off scratch against Harry Birch , who's another fast-improving youngster.
Ed has beaten some good-quality opponents in Division 1 this season, including 3 in one night against IBM B. Dom's victims in
Division 3 have included John Pryor and Roy Bright , both of them very seasoned players and well equipped to brush
aside anyone who isn't handy with a bat.
Morgan Smith
only lost 11-9 in the 5th to Ed Slot
in the Open Singles qualifiers, so he's very much a force to reckon with. Blake showed he can handle a big start
really well in handicap matches, but he's getting a slightly shorter lead against Morgan than he did against Ed Slot.
Jared, the current Holder, has beaten Julian Walton this season - need I say more? Only that
his improvement since Christmas has been startling. Like Ed Slot , he can find himself in the deepest hole and hop casually out of it. Hugo Gregan may have a
slightly less dramatic record, but his trump card could be that he has a 3-0 winning record against Jared!
Doubles
Cameron Brealey and Ed Slot vs Paul May and John McBeath The scratch Division 2 pairing of Kevin Muldowney & Barry Dobson got to within a point
of defeating current Holders Cameron and Ed 3-0 and probably the biggest upset of the day. Kevin's stream of huge backhands suddenly dried up and all was back to normal again.
Ed and Cameron's experience of staring into the abyss and finding it was nothing special won't make them feel invincible: everyone
knows Paul and John have plenty of fearsome
weapons up their sleeves.
Chris Westbrook had to beat team-mate Len Field to get to the Final.
Study the stats and you'll see that's highly improbable: Len's average has been a mighty 92% and Chris's a modest 20% in the same Division!
Chris played at his best, with grudging defence spiced up with the occasional big hit. In the Final he'll be up against another team-mate with a
similar mix of they-shall-not-pass blocking and then a big hit that quite often finds its mark.
Although Kevin has an excellent record in Division 2 this season, and has nearly always beaten Glenn in the past, Finals Night is a bit more of a cauldron
than your average League match. Be prepared for a close match!
A repeat of last year's Final - but will Paul repeat his win? As before, Cameron will carry the burdens
of a Tournament Organiser, but he's proved he does it extremely well and has nothing to worry about there.
John has lost only one Division 1 League match this season - an extremely close affair with Ed Slot , each of
their 5 sets going to 11-9 or beyond. John last played in our League about 10 years ago, with Garth Kinlocke (reached Number 9 in England) and brother David McBeath
(the current England Number 4). That was quite a Winnall team!
Thanks for making it all happen!
Cameron Brealey planned and oversaw
the whole event, but he had plenty of willing helpers, many from Kings TT Club. Chris, Barry, Jill, Allan, Adrian and others, all played a part.
Winchester Table Tennis League: Finals Night 2017 Pictures (by Tim Humphrey) and Report (by Martin
Healey)
Slideshows
Click on a Slideshow picture to see it full size and in its original format
Cycle through each Slideshow by clicking on Prev or Next buttons
Judging by the comments I heard, this Finals Night was just as enjoyable as all the others we've seen in recent years. Plenty of hard-fought battles
in the playing arena, and an audience eager for thrills, spills and laughs. The biggest laugh went to a ping-pong ball which whizzed up into the
rafters and then landed cleanly several seconds later in a half-filled wineglass. The wineglass swallowed the ball as neatly as a performing seal.
Last year we wondered whether Ben Cawston would complete a 140-mile drive from Tipton in time for a very late Singles Final; this time it was Ed Slot
who had us wondering, but as he was only coming from the Basingstoke Closed Heats, things weren't too desperate. He went on to win the Singles at
their Finals Night in the following week - you can find that on YouTube, too.
This competition was played through to a conclusion at the Heats on Sunday 23rd April, mainly to avoid the problem of players
possibly having to play with two different kinds of bat on the same night, and also to save time at Finals Night.
Martin had astonishingly beaten Paul May in the Semis - that was about as amazing as Leicester City winning the Premier League, if not more so.
Martin, an above-average Division 3 player, had never seen a sandpaper bat until the day of the Heats. In the Final he came up against one of last
year's Finalists, and Paddy demonstrated just what a technically strong and versatile player he is. Martin played well, but he couldn't make any
headway against a man holding all the best cards.
Jared won the Under 18s in straight sets last year, so on the face of it this wasn't going to be much of a challenge for him. As it turned out,
Ed at the other end of the table proved to be a tough proposition, with some very comfortable attacking shots on both wings, and sound defence
against Jared's topspin. Maybe it was Jared's greater experience that told in the end, but Ed did extremely well for someone who's only been playing
for a few months
Jared won the Under 18s in straight sets last year, so on the face of it this wasn't going to be much of a challenge for him. As it turned out,
Ed at the other end of the table proved to be a tough proposition, with some very comfortable attacking shots on both wings, and sound defence
against Jared's topspin. Maybe it was Jared's greater experience that told in the end, but Ed did extremely well for someone who's only been playing
for a few months
Barry's initial lead of 9 in these 21-up Handicap games looked reasonable enough, but it's hard to gauge someone
who only played against top Division 1 teams against a very successful Division 3 player. Barry played
his usual tenacious game, defending and moving quickly as well as ever, but when Patrick spotted an opening he hit
far too hard to give Barry a chance to lay bat on ball.
We know Harry is a good player - he played in almost all of South Wonston B")' href=SouthWonstonB.html>South Wonston B")' href=SouthWonstonB.html>South Wonston B")' href=SouthWonstonB.html>South Wonston B's matches in Division 2, helping them to a 2nd-place
finish and averaging 73%. Unfortunately he never really got going against Jared, who perhaps was feeling more relaxed after his earlier win,
while Harry was probably finding the frenetic Finals Night atmosphere a bit of a shock in his first Final. You don't get much chance to find
your feet in this kind of event!
The night's only 5-setter, and something of a classic. Paul and Patrick nicked the first two sets, with Paul exceptionally strong on
the backhand and Patrick on the forehand. Then Ed and Cameron found a bit more rhythm and coaxed a few more errors. This was
a fascinating contest, but somehow the capturing of the 3rd set seemed to take the match inevitably towards a 5th, with the momentum
favouring Ed and Cameron.
Barry had a very successful season in Division 3, so he wasn't likely to find Martin posing a serious threat.
Martin's strategy, if that's the word for it, was to try to pat the ball high up in the air and hope Barry
might make a few errors in going for some glory shots; or better still, a lot of errors. It wasn't likely to happen, and it didn't happen.
Anyone who has seen Antony play will have been hoping he'd be able to unleash his famous swinging forehand
now and then. He was, but this was serious stuff and not the time to think too much
about pleasing the crowd. Both players worked hard and there really wasn't a great deal to choose between them.
In the end Antony's overall better playing record this season probably gave him the feeling he only had to keep
going to come out on top, which is what happened.
Two opposing Doubles players opposed each other in this event. Paul, making it look easy, was particularly brutal with flat hits
that Cameron found difficult to chop against, even though he's one of the best defenders in the League. Cameron
of course just kept going, trying not to offer anything tempting on the backhand and putting aside any distracting thoughts that
Tournament Organisers may have as the evening unfolds!
You can watch the whole of this match here. 10 minutes of pure gold!
Earlier in the evening Paul had been able to thrill us all with his big flat-hit backhands, but you can only hit
a backhand if it's there to be hit, and Ed successfully denied Paul the chance to feel better about himself by
forcing him to use his forehand, which was not quite reliable enough on the night. Very frustrating - and of
course frustration rarely improves performance! Ed was a worthy winner of a match did which didn't quite reach
the heights of last year's Final (Panjun Li against Ben Cawston , who umpired this Final), and Ed against Brian Hayes in 2014.
Presentations
These were made by Mick Bryant, who has made a big contribution to the League by reviving the Winnall")' href=Winnall.html>Winnall")' href=Winnall.html>Winnall")' href=Winnall")' href=Winnall.html>Winnall")' href=Winnall.html>Winnall.html>Winnall")' href=Winnall.html>Winnall")' href=Winnall.html>Winnall club
and then helping to start up the Kings club, where he's President and still plays on Mondays.
Jill Wilson As League Secretary for the past few years Jill
has applied her exceptional qualities of tact, patience, persuasiveness and reasonableness to the job of
making sure the League has run smoothly and fairly. That's not easy when team captains sometimes feel sore
about injustices and lack of responsivess (real or imagined) from other teams. As an example, this season absolutely all matches
got played, and that hasn't happened for at least 10 years!
Owen Booker Cup (top average in any Division, and played at least 75% of matches)
Colin Sly Giantkiller Cup (most surprising win by an underdog)
Dave Sansome With a 14% average, beat someone on 72%!
As ever, the organisation and running of Finals Night was highly polished and efficient, and thanks are due to
Cameron Brealey (the Organiser) and his team of merry helpers - Antony Moore , Barry Ross , Chris Sabourin ,
Andy and Suzanne Prince behind the bar, the umpires, and finally Tim Humphrey for his wonderful
pictures.
Click here 
