Gehlot comes through the pack

Reading’s Hari Gehlot came through the pack from an unseeded position to win the Cippenham Veterans’ Summer 2-Star Open Men’s Singles title on Sunday.

On a day when the top seeds did not have it anything like their own way, Gehlot emerged from the toughest of preliminary round groups unscathed. He first took out fourth seed Mark Wicker 3-0 and then did a similar job on the otherwise impressive Nigel Hodder. Hodder had come into the tournament without any ranking points yet immediately signalled his pedigree when forcing Wicker all the way before succumbing deuce in the fifth and deciding game. Later, Hodder would eliminate second seed and previous champion Steve Hall in the second knock-out round before falling to Andy Misseldine, a player who had an impressive tournament throughout.

Misseldine had beaten another former champion in Steve Davis in the groups thus relegating the latter to second spot, a position the latter only secured after beating Geoff Grange in a tight five-game encounter. Yet another former champion was beaten in the groups. Like Steve Hall, Fred Dove was trying to overcome the handicap of having to change his rubber following the banning of frictionless long pimples. This proved too much of a challenge for the third seed Dove who failed in the group to Chris Knight and was then knocked out of the event altogether in the second round by Roger Grech.

Lee Middleton was another player to catch the eye early on. Middleton had impressed in previous events over the past year at Cippenham and despite being only the fourth ranked player in his preliminary group he came through to win that. In the same group Keith Fung, fifth ranked, elevated himself to the runner-up position.

Top seed Dave Harvey won his group with more ease than anyone. His first knock-out round, however, brought sterner opposition in the form of Mark Wicker, the displaced fourth seed. Harvey ultimately won 3-2 after being 2-0 up and then romped through matches with Steve Davis and Chris Knight to set up a meeting with Hari Gehlot in a final that Gehlot won in four games. Knight had earlier won the battle of the players who had surpassed themselves earlier by eliminating Middleton in the quarters.

The Women’s Singles was played as a round robin and was won by Janice Lee with the higher ranked Diane Melville in second place.

Results

Event	Winner	Runner-up
Men’s Singles	Hari Gehlot (Berks)	Dave Harvey (Gloucs)
Women’s Singles	Janice Lee (Surrey)	Diane Melville (Surrey)
Men’s Consolation	Eddie Herrity (Oxon)	David Randall (Middx)