New members come to the fore

Cippenham Table Tennis Club has been running its own Club Championships for the past four weeks and new champions have been crowned. In fact, two of the new champions are also new members.

The most recent event has been the Open Singles championship. As for the other events, the Club’s weekly Thursday practice session provided the setting and this has proved popular with large entries being received for both the Open Singles and Open Doubles. Tony Stead, an RAF man brought along to the Club by his doubles partner Steve Buck, and one of the newest members of Cippenham Table Tennis Club, quickly made his mark with wins in both of the events open to all age groups.

In the singles Stead was seeded at one and the only game he lost in winning the title was in the preliminary round group against Grzegorz Strojny. He went on to beat Gavin Williams, Elroy Hull and Steve Smith, the latter 11-9, 11-9, 11-9 in the semi-final, to set up another meeting with Strojny in the final. Strojny’s path had been more difficult in overcoming Jack McCandless, Terry Boxall 11-8 in the fifth and deciding game and then Sue Hayes in the semi-final. Hayes had earlier beaten Armando Borges, surprise winner over second seed Graham Trimming in the second round.

The previous week, in the Open Doubles, the RAF pair of Stead and Buck had teamed up with success. They brought down Strojny and Boxall in one semi-final while Trimming and Smith did likewise to McCandless and Hull.

The Veterans’ Singles winner was Paul Elliott who beat Elroy Hull in the semi-final and then Terry Boxall in the final, while a smaller entry for the Tweenies’ Singles, an event for players “between” junior and veteran status, saw Strojny take the gold medal and Tony Andrews silver.