The Guernsey Table Tennis Association successfully held their first tournaments this week following the exit from lockdown. The highly popular summer league was run during July and August and this saw 70 different players compete over the 9 weeks. With the winter leagues due to commence on Wednesday 16th September 2020, it was the turn of the Divisional Championships last week which usually fall at the end of each winter league season. As with several tournaments scheduled towards the end of last season, these will now be held over the next few months and this includes the Island Championships, which will take place in November. The Divisional championships themselves were well represented and saw an impressive 83 entrants across the 4 Divisional tournaments. The format is such that each player is able to enter a maximum of 2 events, being the Division they competed in during the 2019/20 season and also the event for the immediately higher division. It is only therefore players in the First Division who are only able to enter 1 event. From the other 5 groups, it was the seeded Division 1 players which successfully navigated their groups as winners. The only 2nd Division player to reach the knockout stages was Jez Powell and he went one stage further after battling past Andre De Carteret in 5 sets in the opening knockout round. Another notable opening round encounter saw Gilson overcome fellow left hander Andy Gill in 5 sets. The top 4 seeded players all came through their Quarter Final encounters relatively comfortably. Top seed Josh Stacey did however drop the opening end to Matthew Casey before winning in 4 sets, 11-8 the score in the final set. Foss also had a tough clash with Powell but battled through to win in 3 closely contested sets. 3rd seed Lawrence Stacey overcame Gilson in straight sets, whilst 4th seed Paul Hainsworth did likewise against Dawn Morgan. Stacey played some super table tennis in the final to win the first 2 ends and this included coming back from 7-3 down in the first end to take it 11-8. He was finding particularly good effect with his backhand counter spins/drives in the longer rallies. Foss did battle back well to comfortably take the 3rd end, however Stacey was the main man on the night taking the 4th end and title 11-7. The second Division championship was won by second seed Ben Sharp after he defeated 4th seed Martin Sarre 3-1 in the final. The final was a similar pattern to the Division 1 championship as Sharp took a 2-0 lead, before Sarre won the 3rd. Sharp then finished the job in the 4th with the score of 11-7. The Division 3 championship saw some of the hardest fought matches across all events as there were a large number of 5 set matches throughout the group and knockout stages. One such group took over 2 hours to complete. It was 4th seed Ian Fitchet that rolled back the years to claim the honours after battling past top seed Brian Ferbrache in the final. Fitchet came through the topsy-turvy final 12-10, 11-2, 7-11, 2-11, 12-10. The Division 4 championship was won by 2nd seed Shelby Timms after she defeated team-mate from last season and top seed Oscar Pearson in the final. The final was an identical story to that of Divisions 1 and 2 as Timms won in 4 sets, with Pearson keeping the match alive by winning the 3rd end. Results |
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