21-04-2012 Island Championships

Post date: Apr 23, 2012 8:52:44 AM

Men's Singles

Top seed Garry Dodd will be looking to win his 5th consecutive Men's Singles championship when he faces 4th seed Scott Romeril in the final.

Dodd rapidly made his way to the semi finals with straight game wins over Joshua Stacey, Luke Le Tissier and Alex Robinson. In the semi finals he took on 3rd seed Phil Ogier in a match that saw some excellent rallies. The encounter was a closely contested with Dodd winning 2 of the legs 14-12, however he had too much firepower overall and ended up a 4-1 winner.

Romeril had a much tougher route to the semi finals and he was pushed in the 1st round by upcoming junior Sam King. King will rue chances in the opening leg, which he lost 13-11, as he went on to win 2 of the next 3 legs. Romeril made no mistake from 2-2 against his younger opponent and he powered through in 6 games. He followed this up with a straight game win over Cenkos Panthers team-mate Martin Sarre to reach the Quarters, where he would face his other league team-mate and 7th seed Jez Powell. The encounter was lengthy battle which saw Powell leading throughout with advantages of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2. Romeril showed his trademark battling spirit to help him navigate the 6th and 7th legs, his 5-0 lead advantage at the change of ends in the 7th proving pivotal.

In the semi finals he came up against 6th seed Paul Hainsworth, who himself had dodged a bullet in the opening round of the competition. He was involved in one of the many tough first round matches for the seeded players against one of the top Division 1 Junior players Lawrence Stacey. Stacey had Hainsworth on the ropes by winning the opening 2 legs. Hainsworth managed to pinch the 3rd leg 13-11 to keep his hopes alive and looked set to have got himself back into the match when leading 8-4 in the 4th. It looked a certainty that his tournament was over when he let this lead slip and went down 12-10, falling to a 3-1 deficit. He reacted well and showed good resolve by remaining composed and played some sensible table tennis to comfortably make it through the following 3 games to scrape through.

Another tough first round encounter was between 5th seed Liam Robilliard and the in form Mark Pipet. The match was a real humdinger with half of the 6 sets being decided in deuce. It was Pipet's night on this occasion as he won 4-2, 14-12 in the 6th. He went on to lose to Ogier in straight games in the Quarter finals.

Romeril's game with Hainsworth was over in 4 games as Romeril won the big points and took his opportunities well. Hainsworth's best chance of a leg came in the 3rd, where he squandered a couple of game points, going down 14-12, making the task of a comeback extremely difficult.

Women's Singles

The tournament went with the form books as top seed Alice Loveridge will meet 2nd seed Kay Chivers in the final.

Loveridge was fairly untroubled in her run through as she defeated Hayley Webb and Paula Le Ber without dropping any legs.

Chivers made her way to the semis by defeating Emma Webb in straight games and she defeated 3rd seed Sam Kershaw there by 4 games to 1 in a well contested encounter.

The closest match of the event was in the first round where Emma Webb defeated Beth Priest 11-9 in the 7th and final game. Young Chloe Le Tissier also put in a fine performance over the more experienced Kershaw, falling to a respectable 4-2 defeat after winning the opening 2 legs.