Senior British League Round 5

The Senior British National League campaign for the 2018/19 season concluded this weekend for the Ravenscroft-backed Guernsey table tennis teams with mixed success.

The first team which contains the Island’s best players in the form of Garry Dodd, Joshua Stacey, Lawrence Stacey and Ben Foss were unfortunate to be relegated from the extremely high standard Championship Division, which is the 2nd tier of table tennis within the structure of the leagues. Despite the relegation, the side managed to avoid finishing bottom and followed up on the strong form they showed back in February where they went undefeated against the top sides in the Division. The fixtures this weekend saw 1 victory and 1 draw from their 4 encounters contested at the Corby Smash Table Tennis Centre in Northamptonshire. 

The first match of the weekend saw the side obtain a narrow 5-3 win against a Portsmouth side who finished 7th in the league which consists of 10 teams. The leading player in the Channel Islands, Dodd, who is based in Sheffield continues to produce high quality performances and he made a strong start here with a straight set win over Adeoye Adewale and a 4 set win over Adam Fuzes. Both of these players are equivalently ranked in the top 40 in England, so the wins and nature of them were impressive. Winner of the last 2 Senior Open tournaments in Guernsey, Lawrence Stacey, also enjoyed an unbeaten start to the weekend. He also earned a straight sets win over Adewale, but it was his first fixture against Jacob Goss which was a crucial win for the team. He trailed 2-0 to the 60th best Under 21 player in England before storming back to win the final 3 ends all by the matching score of 11-8. Foss picked up the pivotal 5th win for his side in the final encounter of the match. Once more a Sarnian trailed Goss 2-0, but he too bounced back strongly and won over 5 sets. Joshua Stacey came very close to adding to the tally but lost to Martin Matuzevicius in 5 sets, despite leading 2-1. 

The other match on Saturday resulted in a 6-2 to loss to the ever improving Ormesby II side that ended up finishing in 4th place. The youthful Middlesbrough based side finished the season with 7 wins from their last 8 matches and were the highest point scorers in the entire league over this period. Despite the defeat, the result ultimately stemmed on two 5 set encounters. Dodd started off where he left off courtesy of a comfortable straight sets win over England number 58 David Gofton, but he narrowly fell 12-10 in the deciding 5th end to England number 24 Joe Cope, who is also the 4th best U18 Male in the country. Lawrence picked up the other Guernsey win when he overcame Gofton in 4 sets. He also came close to defeating Thomas Rayner, but fell 13-11 in the 5th and deciding end of their encounter.

The final day of action commenced with a crushing 7-1 defeat at the hands of the side that ended up finishing as runners-up in the Division, Nottingham Sycamore I. Dodd was the only player to fully test the opposition and this included an excellent 3-1 winner over the defensive skills of England number 23 James Hobson. He was just unable to complete the double due to losing his opening encounter to another defender, in the form of England Number 39 Sam Wilson, who came back from 2-0 down to edge past the left hander.

The final match of the season was against Kingfisher I and decided who would finish bottom of the table. In the end the encounter ended as a 4-4 stalemate and condemned the Reading based side the undesirable position. Dodd finished off the weekend strongly with a duo of wins. First up was a 3-1 win over another chopper in the form of the wily veteran and England number 52 Dave Barr. He concluded with a comprehensive straight sets win over England number 46 Daniel Moses. Lawrence earned a 4 set win over Lewis Waddup, whilst Foss picked up his 2nd win of the weekend via a 4 set win over Artur Morar. He came very close to securing the win, but fell in 5 sets to Waddup.