St Paul's Handicap Open Singles
Post date: Sep 04, 2018 8:0:58 PM
The GTTA’s new season kicked off with the St Paul’s handicap tournament. 32 players signed up to compete - each allotted a handicap based on their past season’s league form. Handicap tournaments open things up for lesser players but most still find it a challenge to take on the technically more accomplished players from the higher divisions. The difference is both technical and tactical. The better players show more resilience.
Despite generous handicaps for lesser players the group was reduced to the usual suspects by the quarter finals - seven Division 1 players and the creditable exception of Craig Dunning from Division 3. In a bid to maximise his opportunities in Division 3 Craig uses less conventional anti-spin rubbers - an advantage more or less made redundant when playing the Div 1 players.
The final saw Paul Hainsworth with a five point start on the island’s leading player Garry Dodd. He won in straight sets - loose play in the mid section of game 2 stemming the comeback table tennis followers might have expected from Dodd.