Surprise defeat for top seed

Cippenham Table Tennis Club’s first tournament of the season, the Senior 2-Star Open, drew a good sized entry of about seventy players, one big surprise and the youngest winner yet.

Patrick Thomas, at fifteen, became the youngest winner of the Cippenham Senior Open although he did win the Double Group Open last season and has won many junior titles at the Club. The boy from Blaenavon in Wales is a regular visitor to Cippenham and a major factor in why so many of the Club’s titles disappear down the M4 and into the principality.

Thomas plays the modern fast attacking style and is so quick that most older players find it hard to keep up with his pace. In fact the third seed dropped only one game all day, and that was in his final preliminary round group match against Patrick Hui. After that it was all plain sailing as he despatched Paul Massey, Graham Outrim, Peter Ives, Lee Middleton and then, in the final, the old war horse Fred Dove. Dove is a different sort of player from a different generation. He has mastered his long pimpled backhand rubber so well in the past few seasons that he has rocketed up the national veterans’ rankings and won a few events at Cippenham along the way. However, the younger man proved far too strong winning the final 11-8, 11-9, 11-3.

A couple of the seeds got beaten in their groups, but all made it through to the main event draw. Sixth seed Nat Richardson lost his opening match to Ross Sazby and eighth seed Tony Morris failed in his group against Matt Pernet. Into the main draw, Richardson made further progress against Andrew Bugden and David Langham but then got upended by Middleton. Pernet failed against Peter Ives in the first round.

The only seed to go out of the main competition draw in the opening round was Rory Scott. The fifth seed was beaten by Robert Worrall. The biggest upset happened later right at the top of the draw. Lee Middleton had been drawing attention to himself by winning his group and then despatching the veteran Paul Beck in the next round. Then he really surfaced by eliminating top seed Yasir Mauthoor 3-1 in round two. He then also ended the run of Nat Richardson before falling a victim to Patrick Thomas in the semi-final. Not bad for a player with no senior points on the national ranking list.

Worrall’s run, after beating Scott, came to an end when Ramesh Gehlot saw him off in round two. Gehlot went on to beat Tony Morris in round three before becoming Fred Dove’s semi-final victim.

None of the local players provided any highlights. John Barclay and Paul Baker both made it out of the groups but no further.

The women’s event was won by Lindsey Armstrong, a product of the Cippenham coaching scheme. Armstrong was too strong for Feifei Pei in a final dominated by fast counter-attacking rallies.

Results of finals:

Men’s Singles: Patrick Thomas (Wales) beat Fred Dove (Essex) 11-8, 11-9, 11-3

Women’s Singles: Lindsey Armstrong (Middlesex) beat Fiefie Pei (Surrey) 11-8, 11-8, 11-9

Men’s Consolation: Patrick Hui (Surrey) beat Daniel Lucking (Hants) 11-8, 14-12, 11-13, 11-7

Women’s Consolation: Jodie Sparrey (Middlesex) beat Jasmine Ould (Kent) 8-11, 11-8, 12-10, 10-12, 11-9