Capelles Handicap Doubles

The Ravenscroft Panthers pairing of Peter Vivian and Ben Foote won the ever-popular Capelles Handicap Doubles tournament on Monday evening, overcoming Jamie Ferbrache and Mark Windsor in the final.

The January ‘Capelles’ are ever-popular tournaments in the GTTA calendar and the 2021 edition of the Handicap Doubles saw a healthy entry of members young and old and from all 4 Divisions plus

 the Social League.  The format is a simple one in that players enter individually and get paired up with another entrant at random, with players’ handicap being averaged out in a series of games played under the old ‘first to 21’ playing system.

This resulted in some intriguing matchups, and the sight of in-form Lawrence Stacey with the fast-improving Division 2 player Nye Matthew looked a particularly dangerous combination.  Indeed, the GTTA handicappers should be credited for some fine judgement as there were plenty of deuce games and the majority of matches over the evening went the full 3-set distance.

This was evidenced when the eventual victors were well beaten in the first match of the night as 4th Division Helen Barker and Dawn Taylor made excellent use of their +12 start to win 2-1, although ultimately they were a little unfortunate to be eliminated at the group stage on countback.

After a tight set of quarter finals, including elimination of some of the early favourites, the first semi-final pitted Jamie Ferbrache and Mark Windsor against Andy Gill and Erik Teteruck in a highly tactical affair.  Gill and Teteruck were particularly effective as a left-hand, right-hand combination but despite taking the first game, were defeated 22-20 in the third game.

On the adjacent table, Vivan and Foote made good use of the 9-point advantage against Ben Foss and Craig Dunning, blocking some of Foss’ topspin drives while also negating Dunning’s pimpled defensive rubber and grabbed a narrow 3-game win, 21-14, 21-23, 21-19.

The final was an all-Group B affair but while Vivian and Foote had triumphed over the same pair in the group stage, the second meeting of the evening was a tighter encounter.  Ferbrache and Windsor raced out of the blocks, despite were conceding a +2 handicap and combined well to take the first end with relative ease.  Vivian and Foote bounced back well, with some impressive blocking of Ferbrache’s powerful loop attacks to claim the next two ends with the final score being 14-21, 21-17, 21-19.

The Capelles events conclude next Monday with the Ladies Handicap Singles tournament, starting at 19:30.

Results