|
SCHOOLS INTERNATIONAL 1/2/3 July 2005
DML Woolwell Table Tennis Club's Sally Smith put in an outstanding performance on her international debut in the Five Nation Schools Home Internationals at Lilleshall National Sports Centre in Shropshire. She was playing for England B in partnership with Somerset's Claire Howe, in the under 16 event. Sally won nine of her twelve singles matches to help her team to third place among the seven competing, behind England A and Scotland A.
Despite a tiring marathon session of 15 singles and doubles matches on Saturday in the team competition stretching from 8.30am to 8.45pm, Sally came into her own on Sunday in the individual event. Competing against all the leading players from Scotland, Wales, Ireland & Guernsey, as well as her English colleagues, she won her qualifying group with four straight wins. Nottinghamshire's Sarah Perks had beaten Sally to take the English Schools title in April but a straight game semi-final win followed another victory the previous day over her England A rival in the team event. The final saw her pitted against England number one Melanie Farquhar from Berkshire. Sally avenged a five game defeat on Saturday to pull off a brilliant victory, again in straight games.
Sally's Devon teammate and local rival, Lisa Radford, who plays for China Fleet in the Plymouth & District League, was making her third appearance for England schools, this time in the under 19 age group. She teamed up with Emma Weil of Essex for England B, also taking third place behind the English A team, represented by Abigail Embling of Essex and Yorkshire's Nicola White. Again, Lisa performed extremely well in the individual competition. After finishing second in her group behind England number one Embling, a good run saw her reach the semi-final before bowing out to full Welsh international, and eventual winner, Naomi Owen.
EUROPEAN VETERANS CHAMPIONSHIPS
Three local players competed recently in the European Veterans Championships in Bratislava. DML Woolwell's Paul Whiting and Paul Giles who plays for China Fleet in the Plymouth League are both ranked in the top six veterans (over 40) in England. In the main event they each won their group, in Whiting's case without losing a game. This gave them byes through the first round but both came unstuck in round two. Whiting lost in four games to the seeded Russian reigning doubles champion. Playing together in the doubles championship, a successful run saw them reach the last sixteen of an extremely high quality event.
Whiting's DML Woolwell teammate Mike Short will be 57 this year but is still highly competitive in the over 50 age category. He also came undefeated through his singles group and reached the third round, while in the doubles he did even better to make it to round four. All three thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
|
|
