Bronze medal for Gavin

Gavin Evans won another medal to add to his growing collection of international awards when he represented the England cadet boys’ team in the European Youth Championships in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, last week.

Evan’s bronze medal came in the Cadet Boys’ Doubles in which he partnered Hunor Szocs of Romania. They beat pairs from Slovakia, Croatia and Poland before falling at the semi-final stage to the eventual winners from France. The English/Romanian combination was actually seeded one for the event but may take some comfort from the fact that their conquerors beat Hungarian opponents more easily in the final.

Evans was also top seed, with another Romanian, Cristina Hirici, in the Cadet Mixed Doubles. However, in this event a medal eluded the Cippenham Table Tennis Club member as, after wins over Slovenian, Italian and French opponents they succumbed at the quarter-final stage to a pair from Germany.

In the Cadet Boys’ Singles, Evans secured his seeded position in the quarter-finals by virtue of wins over players from Bosnia-Herzogovina, Belgium and the Czech Republic. In his quarter-final Evans was extremely unlucky to lose out to Patrick Franziska of Germany by the narrow margin of 9-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 10-12. Not more than two points separated the players in any of the seven games and Evans led by three games to two at one stage.

In the team event, Evans led his team from the front, winning six of his eight singles matches as England finished in a creditable seventh place.

Cippenham Table Tennis Club had a second member representing England out in Bratislava. Melanie Farquhar won three of her seven singles as her England junior girls’ team finished 31^st in the team event. Mel met with some success also in the individual events reaching the third round of both doubles events in which she partnered David Meads and Emma Vickers. In the singles she beat a Norwegian girl in the first round but was then eliminated by a Portuguese in the second round after having won the first game. That qualified Farquhar for the consolation singles in which she won three more matches against opponents from Serbia, Slovenia and Slovak Republic before losing in the quarter-final to a Russian.