 17 year old
Joshua Butler (pictured) followed up on his impressive start to the domestic league
campaign by securing top spot in the local Junior Top 12 Qualification event.
Butler has not tasted defeat in the Doric Insurance Senior league since the
first fixture of the season and the confidence taken from this impressive run
was evident throughout the qualifiers. He raced through his first 5 matches
without dropping an end against Ryan Bichard, Cleo Rosumek, Chloe Le Tissier,
Jack Ives and Ben Foss. Due to his billing as the top seed for the qualifiers,
the tougher encounters came during the final 4 rounds of action. First up was
James Rabey, who played superbly in the opening leg to open up a surprise
advantage. Butler remained composed and successfully navigated through the
tricky clash in 4 games to make it 6 out of 6. An even tougher test was to come
in round 7, as he came up against another player in form, Alex Robinson.
Robinson, 16, had been the star performer during Deutsche Bank Guernsey I’s
first round of matches in the Junior British League just 4 weeks reserved. The
Sarnian side is competing in Division 3B and Robinson won all 10 of his matches
during the weekend leaving him at the top of the averages. Butler did well to
claw back a huge deficit in the opening leg before going down 13-11. His form
in the proceeding 2 legs was scintillating as he stormed through them for the
loss of just 6 points. Robinson refused to go down without a fight and he raced
through the 4th to force the decider. The final end contained some
lengthy exchanges with both players controlling the ball well from the backhand
side. Ultimately it was Butler that had the extra consistency during the leg
and he edged it 11-8 to put himself in pole position to gain top spot ahead his
final 2 matches against the Stacey twins, Joshua and Lawrence. The former was
first up and Butler ran out as a straight game winner, with the only real
danger coming in the 3rd and final game, which he won 12-10. This
win ensured that the top spot was his regardless of the outcome in his game
with Lawrence in round 9. It looked like a full house was on the cards when he
won the first leg convincingly, however Lawrence turned the match around and
ended up winning 3-1 courtesy of close outcomes in the following 3 ends.
Despite his
win against the top qualifier, Lawrence did not earn the number 2 spot, as this
was taken by Robinson. Robinson needed all of his concentration to defeat
Lawrence in their match which he pinched 13-11 in the 5th, an
untimely fault serve from Lawrence cruelly ending proceedings in the decider.
His match against twin Joshua was another hard fought encounter which also
ended with a narrow victory in the winning game. Their match did not go to the
decider on this occasion, it was won 14-12 in the 4th by Alex.
It was
Joshua that took 3rd position as he came out on top in the battle of
the twins. He reversed a 2-1 deficit to win 11-8 in the decisive 5th
end. This result meant that Lawrence took 4th spot.
The 5th
and 6th spots were realistically achievable by any of the remaining
6 players at the start of the night, such is the small difference in standard
between the players. The younger players that cashed in on the opportunity on
this occasion were 12 year old Ben Foss and 15 year old Chloe Le Tissier. Foss
was 5th and only lost to the players that qualified above him. His
first match was against 1st Division player Rabey and his 3-0 win
over him was also the first time that he had beaten his elder and higher ranked
opponent. Le Tissier had a tough start to the event as she came up against 3 of
the top 4 qualifiers in her first 3 matches. She bounced back from defeats in
those matches by winning her next 3. The most important of these wins came in
round 6 where she defeated Alderney’s Jack Ives 11-4 in the final game. Ives
was the only Ridunian present and gave a good account of himself at the event,
narrowly missing out on qualification via his 7th position finish.
His best win was his 5 game victory over Rabey in the final round of the
evening. Le Tissier also needed the full 5 games to get past an out of sorts
Rabey in 5 in a win that sealed her qualification in the penultimate round of
matches.
The Channel
Island event will take place on Sunday 24th November at the Guernsey
Table Tennis Centre based at Hougue Du Pommier.
The annual
event’s location alternates between the 2 Islands each year, with last year’s
event held in Jersey being won by Caesarean Hugo Tupper.
Tupper was
one of the 6 Jersey players to qualify from their respective qualification
event which was held on 20th October at the Geoff Reed centre.
Tupper is not the highest qualifier this time as that spot went to the rapidly
improving and current form player, Jordan Wykes. Wykes has produced some good
performances in the Jersey local league thus far this season where he has
obtained wins over former Green Trophy players Tupper and
current Jersey Men’s Singles and Men’s Doubles Island champion in the form of
Pole, Gregorz Frankowski.
The
other Jersey players to qualify were defenders Chris Morshead and Jack Mills,
Tyler Gosselin and Kelsey Le Maistre. |