Results of Cardiff League's Closed Tornament

Hi All,

It's your ace reporter Chris "Scoop" Richards here again from the Daily Bugle, with an update on our end of season Tournaments. Apologies for the delay in writing about last Thursday's competitions, but I've only just recovered from all the excitement and late nights involved in covering the events so far. I am fully expecting a bid from Sky anytime now for the rights to show next years matches!

So let's get started with last Thursday's events:

Ladies

This year we had a fantastic ladies competition, certainly the best in my experience. 6 Ladies entered and the Table Tennis played was of an extremely high standard throughout.

In my quest to win a trophy, I had been considering growing my hair and wearing a dress, as I thought this event might provide my best chance of winning something, but having seen the standard of the ladies now, I've decided in future to enter a newly introduced "Left Handed Tournament for Males named Chris Richards" event instead. I am fairly confident I can win that one, although it may be difficult! I will of course continue to wear the dress in the privacy of my own home!!! 

Anyway, enough of that..... The Ladies competition was played on a round robin basis throughout the night with a total of 15 matches taking place, best of three games. Of these, 5 matches went to the full 3 games and there were many other close games. Charlotte Carey put on a masterful display winning all 5 of her matches to take the title in style. The remaining ladies battled it out for the other positions and it was extremely close from top to bottom. In the end both Julie Furber and Anna Labuz won 3 and lost 2 to finish joint second, with Samantha Meredith winning 2 and losing 3 to finish 4th. Johanna Varvarikes and Crystal Tseng both won 1 and lost 4 to finish joint 5th. All in all, it was an excellent competition with a truly International field. Of course, Wales did win it in the end of course, which isn't surprising really with them being one of the top table tennis nations in the world!!!

Vets over 55's

The old boys were out in force for this one, accompanied by their carers of course, because it was likely to be late night!!! They did all get through it safely though and were back home and sipping their Horlicks at a reasonable hour.

There were 10 entries split into two groups of 5 playing on a round robin basis through to the quarter finals. All 4 quarter finals were won convincingly by George Evans, Roy Gibson, Roger Grech and Glyn Kellow, which set things up nicely for the semi's. George was then in dominant form as he beat Roy and in the other semi, Roger came through a tough match with Glyn in 4 games. We were then treated to an excellent and closely fought final, in which both players were dominant at different stages. Finally George came through to win a great match in 5 games.

I have been checking back in the records and it appears that George first won this competition in 1911, so congratulations to him on winning it again 100 years later. A magnificent performance!!!

Vets over 40's 

On the same night, we saw the over 40's playing, although most of them looked far too young to be taking part in a veterans tournament. There was a big entry for this with 13 split into 4 groups of 3 or 4 playing round robin, with the top two from each group progressing to the quarter finals. This produced a very strong line up for the quarter's with 7 WIS Division players and Ceri Higgon from the 1st Division. Steve Eades and Gareth Dommett came through the first two quarters and then Paul Booth and Ian Jeanes won their quarters, both in 4 games. In the semi finals, Steve

beat Gareth in 4 games, although I think Gareth may have been a bit under the weather, as I didn't notice any barriers being flattened by him during this match. Perhaps he has changed his ways after he recently received a bill from the WIS for £656 for previously broken barriers. In the other semi, Paul beat Ian in 4 tough games to set up the final with Steve.

In the final, after a close first game Steve stepped on the gas and won the title in style in 3 games.

After the event, Paul complained bitterly to the organisers that he had run out of steam in the final because someone had stolen his tablets, but this complaint was firmly rejected by the youthful Graham Jones, although Graham had earlier been seen putting something in his coffee and then running round the venue singing "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts". 

Seriously though, congratulations to Steve on a great win.

Handicap  

This Monday saw the Handicap and Division 2/3 events take place and again it was a fantastic (and late!) night. In the handicap event we had 29 players taking part on a straight knock out basis. This resulted in a wide range of styles and handicaps reaching the quarter finals. At that stage, Crystal Tseng and Johanna Varvarikes came through against Peter Gordon and Adrian Lister (Adrian was later heard to say how much he hated pimples!!!!)

I'm not sure what his problem is though, as I find a tube of Valderma tends to clear them up quite quickly!!! In the other quarter's Truong Lam beat Dave Burmingham in a closely fought match and the reigning champion Derek Gardner beat Paul Holliday.

As the night went on and we closed in on 11pm, Crystal then beat Johanna in 3 excellent games and Truong Lam came through against Derek. Although Derek wasn't happy with this, the committee were, as it ensured their principle that "nobody wins the handicap tournament 2 years running" was maintained

We were then treated to an excellent final between Crystal and Truong which began at 11pm!!! Both players were looking tired by now, especially Crystal who had also progressed in the Div 2/3 competition. After 3 excellent games Truong finally won the title after an excellent event. Our congratulations to him on winning and to Crystal on still managing to stand up at the end.

Division 2/3 Competition

On the same night as the Handicap, we also held the Division 2/3 event and again there was a good entry with 16 players initially playing on a round robin basis in groups of 4. This took us through to the knock out stages and in the quarter finals, Tom Kwok beat the rapidly improving Jordan Rees, Geoff Strangeway beat Mike Clarke in 3 very close games, Brian Scales came through against Truong Lamb and Crystal Tseng beat Derek Gardner. In the semi finals, Tom then beat Geoff in 3 games and Crystal defeated Brian to set up a husband and wife battle with Tom in the final!!!

Unfortunately, by this time, with Crystal also due to play in the handicap final, it wasn't possible to play the final and this will now be played alongside the Hardbat competition. This will guarantee the Kwok/Tseng household a well earned winners trophy on Thursday, although it remains to be seen whic one of them will take the title.

That brings you all up to date with the events so far and all that remains now are the Division 2/3 final and the famous hardbat competition on Thursday.

I'm sure all who've taken part so far will agree it's been a very successful serious of events and I'm sure Thursday will be just as good. My thanks to Chris Davies for organising everything and to Graham Jones for his able assistance.

All the best,

Chris Richards