Butterfield Banded Tournament 4

The fourth and final Butterfield Junior Banded Tournament was held on Saturday at the GTTA Centre and it attracted a good entry, despite some regular players being unavailable due to other sporting commitments.

Band 1 showed a repeat of the last tournament as Ben Sharp narrowly pipped Ridunian Marli Barker to top spot. Barker was in superb form, only losing to Sharp and senior league team-mate Melissa Johns in taking second place. This included an excellent win over Caden Brouard who had to settle for third place. The head-to-head between Barker and Brouard was particularly eye-catching, with some terrific rallies between the two attacking players. Untimately it was Barker who triumphed 11-8, 11-7 to claim the runner-up prize.

Alex Paul had been unlucky to finish in 3rd place on countback in the last two events and was extra determined to close off the last Butterfield tournament of the season on a high. He did that in style by taking the Band 2 title, winning all his matches without even dropping an end. This included an impressive 11-8, 11-1 win over 2nd placed Huxley Le Conte.

Band 3 contained many of the players who will be representing Guernsey in the forthcoming Primary Schools International in Cardiff in April. Alderney’s Tom Syer was in good form on the day and took the title, ahead of fellow under-11 Oskar Cleal. Syer didn’t have it all his own way though as he was defeated by the ever-improving Cameron Powell.

Xavier Ingrouille has come on leaps and bounds in his first season in table tennis and showed this by taking the honours in Band 4 with an unbeaten round of matches. He was closely followed by Remi Tomlin in second place.

The Player of the Day award proved to be a difficult pick with many impressive performances and good sportsmanship shown amongst the players. This time it was awarded to two players, firstly Alderney’s Aleks Jakubowska, another Primary Schools player, who performed excellently in a tough Band 2 and always plays with a smile. Also awarded a trophy was Alex Hutchinson who showed great concentration and shot selection to compete in Band 3. 

Well done to all the players, thanks to all the volunteers who helped to run the tournament and also to Butterfield for their sponsorship of table tennis development in Guernsey.