Essex Press Office

Reported by Steve Kerns
Press & Publicity Officer
Essex County Table Tennis Association

The second round of Junior 2C matches was held at the St. Neots Table Tennis Centre on Saturday 19 January which included the Essex 3 and Essex 4 teams. After the first round of matches the Essex 3 team led the Division by three points but had played one match more than second placed Bedfordshire and the Essex 4 team had chances to finish second or third.

However problems commenced just after Christmas and led right up to match day when fourth team players Andrew McEwan, Christopher Penrose, Lawrence Wilcox and Kalyani Nair declared their unavailability. Eventually Phillip Lawson and Joe Butler confirmed their availability to play for the fourth team and even later Sarah Austin to join Lewis Ewers and Maddison Andrews. Thirty six hours before the match Phillip was involved in an accident at school and out for two weeks so emergency registrations were applied for for Brandon Crouchman and Scott Dowsett on the eve of the match and Brandon confirmed his availability later in the evening. Problems did not finish there as on arrival at St. Neots the next morning it was discovered that Joe Stannard, number three of the Essex 3 team had not travelled and thus the Essex 3 team were down to two boys. Fortunately Lewis Ewers agreed to play for both teams and the opposing teams also gave their consents.

All matches are played on two tables. The Essex 3’s first match was against bottom team Cambridgeshire which resulted in a comfortable 10-0 win, Nial Akata and Lewis winning their matches three straight and Anthonty Kent needing a fourth game to beat Patrick Mohan. Claire Austin was taken the full distance to be Greta Pociate 2, -8, -7, 7, 1 whilst Maddison managed her win over Greta 14, 6, -9, 9. For the second round of matches the team had a bye and, with Bedfordshire winning their two matches, this last match would determine the destination of the title, Bedfordshire needed a win and Essex 3 only a draw. Bedfordshire had strengthened their team for the day by bringing in Imandeep Sehmbi, the highest ranked boy player of any team and also had Venus Wu Yan, the unbeaten highest ranked girl.

Essex 3 went 2-0 down when Anthony lost three straight to Imandeep, 4,6,8 and Lewis to James Coleman 9,9,10. Essex fought back to lead 4-3 with easy three straight wins for Maddison and Claire over Zoe Gardner, Nial accounted for Ben Gardner 8, 7, -8,6 and Anthony beat James -4, 8, 7, 5. Nial lost to Imandeep -9, 7, 4, 5 and Lewis succumbed -3, 7, 7, 9 to Ben. Thus it was left to Maddison to take Venus’s 100% record away. Winning 9 in the first looked promising but Venus was not to be denied, winning the last three 4, 3, 3 to give Bedfordshire the title.

Essex 4, with their depleted team, played Northamptonshire 2 first. In the opening matches Joe Butler beat Ryan Harrison -6, 9, 3, 9 and Brandon, in his first County match soon settled in the game against Sam Wildman, ranked 59 places above him, before losing in five 7, -7, 9, -7, 4. Sarah lost both her matches and Kymberly her opening match but with Lewis winning both his games before going back to play his remaining Essex 3 match and Joe winning his game against Sam 3-1 the score stood at 4-4 before the start of the last two matches. Both these were decided at nine in the fifth, Kymberly beating Rachel Thompson 9, -7, -9, 5, 9 and Brandon unluckily losing 10, -10, -5, 9, 9. to Jack Coleman for a drawn match.

The next match was against Norfolk and with Essex 3 on a bye Lewis had somewhat of a rest with only these two matches to play. Norfolk only had one girl thus starting 2-0 up. Unfortunately this was the only games the Essex team won as Norfolk won the eight games played. Best performances were by Joe Butler losing to Rhodri Oliver 6, -7, -9, 9, 6 and Brandon in the last match against Aaron Marche after being 2-1 up -4, 6, 9, -7, 9

In their last match against Oxfordshire there was never more than one game in the scoreline. With Lewis playing in the Essex 3 decider Brandon achieved his first County win, a -9, -9, 9, 9, 3 win over Chris Smith. Sarah and Joe lost their matches and Lewis, after losing narrowly his Essex 3 game, had an even longer match to get the better of Jake East 5, 7, -8, -9, 9. Kymberly lost her fist game to Nicole Hunt 13 in the fourth and later on from 2-1 up lost to Isabel Hessey -9, 4, -6, 9, 8. Brandon had beaten Jake East 3-0 and Lewis came back from the other match to beat Ross Henderson -8, 5, -12, 9, 6 and, with Joe defeating Chris 8, 9, -5, 5 a draw was achieved.

No doubt Lewis had a good sleep on the journey back to South Woodford after his ten matches. All players acquitted themselves well and it was disappointing that Sarah was the only player not to win a match.

Arthur C. Clark
Essex Junior Match Secretary