Double for Wuraola and home success for Hayes

Abdul Wuraola had two reasons to be very happy with his weekend’s accomplishments at Cippenham Table Tennis Centre: the Surrey veteran won both his events at the second Cippenham Series tournament and did it in fine style. The Cippenham Series is a season-long series of six events with prize money at the end for those players that accumulate the most points. This weekend saw the second senior event and the first veterans’ event.

On Saturday, Wuraola was second seed behind the winner of the first Cippenham Series senior event Neil Charles. But Charles fell victim to the Essex teenager Yasa Mathoor in the quarter-final. Mauthoor, himself, became a casualty in the semi falling to Neil Wright from Wales 11-7 in the fifth and deciding game. This was Wright’s second five-gamer as he had also been taken the distance in the quarters by another Welsh player, the up and coming junior Lewis Williams.

Meanwhile Wuraola was moving through the bottom half of the draw a little easier although both Zoltan Hosszu and Umair Mauthoor took games off him. In the final, Wuraola showed his class by defeating Wright fairly comfortably 3-0.

Jurate Brazaitye from the Byng Hall club in Kent cemented her position at the top of the points table in the Women’s Singles on Saturday. Brazaitye won Series 1 in August and followed this up on Saturday to take a commanding lead at the top of the table. She prevailed after a gigantic battle with Catherine Chen in the final. Chen does not even appear in the latest England ranking list and was therefore unseeded. The final was actually the second time in the day that these two players had met but on the first occasion it was Chen who shocked the Series leader with a 3-0 win in the preliminary round group.

There was a surprise in store in one of the other groups as well. Welsh girl Claire Ford, on the ETTA listing but with zero points shocked second seed Sarah Hudson 12-10 in the fifth. Neither seeded player thus won her group but both progressed in second place into the championship event. It was group 3 that produced the tightest finish with a three-way tie that saw Samantha Meredith and Sue Hayes qualify and Julie Furber relegated to the consolation event that she won.

Chen then beat Hudson in five and Brazaitye got the better of Ford in four in the semi-finals and that set up the second meeting of Brazaitye and Chen on the day.

From a local perspective, best performances in the men’s event came from Ashley Shaw and Tony Stead who both progressed from their groups and reached the last sixteen while Ashley’s brother Oli Shaw, after a good win over Paul Beck, was runner-up in the Men’s Consolation won by Matthew Carter.

On Sunday it was the turn of the veterans and once again it was the Abdul Wuraola show. No surprise here because he is ranked number one in England in this age group. However, Reading’s Hari Gehlot made him work very hard in the semi-final and led two games to one at one stage. Wuraola survived this scare and was a worthy 3-1 winner over second seed John Payne in the final. The other semi-finalist was Radovan Zivkovic who came through a quarter vacated by third seed Gehlot, a preliminary group round loser to the in-form Winston Wong, probably the result of the tournament. Wong then was beaten by Dave Randall in the first knock-out round following which Randall was eliminated by Zivkovic.

Of the other fancied players, Steve Davis went out in the quarters to Wuraola, Fred Dove at the same stage to Gehlot after having led 2-1 and Lee Middleton tamely to Payne.

The Veterans’ Women’s Singles brought home cheer with a win for Cippenham’s Deputy Chairman Sue Hayes. Played as a round robin, Hayes was never extended by the small field.

Results:

Event	Winner	Runner-up
Men’s Singles	Abdul Wuraola (Surrey)	Neil Wright (Wales)
Women’s Singles	Jurate Brazaitye (Kent)	Catherine Chen (Surrey)
Veteran Men’s Singles	Abdul Wuraola (Surrey)	John Payne (Essex)
Veteran Women’s Singles	Sue Hayes (Slough)	Flavia Wade (Middlesex)
Men’s Consolation	Matthew Carter (Northants)	Oli Shaw (Slough)
Women’s Consolation	Julie Furber (Wales)	Claire Rogers (Herts)
Veteran Men’s Consolation	Ray Hughes (Wilts)	Nigel Hodder (Suffolk)