Local Table Tennis Competitions
Tournaments
The seventh annual ODTTA Hard Bat competition for the “TT The Hard Way” trophy
was played on four tables at the Bicester Table Tennis Club on the evening of
Monday, 19th May, 2014. 27 players took part altogether, including several
Kidlington players. The competition, played on newly-purchased blue sandpaper bats,
was won by Kidlington's own Karl Bushell.
[More details from the ODTTA]
Several Kidlington Forum players took part in the Oxford Invitational Tournament that took place at the Pavilion on Sunday 5th May.
Notable results for Kidlington included Karl Bushell's win in the Men's Singles, Karl Bushell and Chris Smith coming runners-up in the Men's Doubles, and Pascal Larousse coming runner-up in the Restricted Handicap Singles.
Several Kidlington Forum players featured in the semi-finals and finals of the ODTTA Divisional Championships, which took place on Friday 14th March.
- Fraser Harris was beaten by Jason Tustain (Bicester) in one of the Division 1 semi-finals.
- Marco Zhang beat Paul Reynolds (Bicester) to take the Division 2 trophy.
- Kavan Warrender narrowly beat Reece Chamdal to take the Division 3 trophy.
- John Ho was the runner-up in Division 4, losing to Shunko Cook (Bicester) in the final.
- Harry Maldonado, Matt Hughes and Jack Smith had a close competition in the 2AS competition.
[Full report and photo, from the ODTTA site]
Team Competitions
Well done to Forum G, who won the finals of the Aubrey Hughes Handicap Shield on Thursday 21st April at the Gladiators Club.
Report from ODTTA:
It was an all-Forum affair in the final of the Aubrey Hughes Handicap Shield competition that was held once again at the Gladiators Club in Iffley Road. Forum D, from Division 2, was represented by Pascal Larousse, Marco Zhang and Guy Plowman, while Forum G, from Division 3, had Farshad Shaddel, David Moulton and Ben Pritchard. Captain Ben Pritchard was looking for a repeat of last year's final where he was the winner with a different team.
Forum G were given a start of 220 points and it was nip and tuck the whole evening, clear to all that it was unlikely to be decided before the doubles at the end of the night. When the doubles arrived, the Division 2 side were beginning to fear the worst as they had lost a bit of ground and needed to win each remaining game 11-3 and that was a big ask. It was not to be, and Forum G won by a mere 10 points (436 to 426) - a pleasingly close result for the competition handicapper Max Jackson. David Moulton's contribution was immense and swung the match his way. He is improving rapidly and has certainly now outgrown his current handicap, which helps in this competition! His heavy topspin gave Marco Zhang and Guy Plowman plenty to think about.
Several Kidlington Forum teams did well in the Oxford & District Table Tennis League, Autumn 2013 - Spring 2014 season.
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The Forum D team won Division 2.
Simon Price and Jonah Stott, from Forum D, receive their winners' trophies. -
The Forum H team were the runners-up in Division 3.
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The Forum K team were the runners-up in the Two-A-Side League.
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The Forum A had the best doubles performance in Division 1, with 90% of their doubles matches won.
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The Forum G had the best doubles performance in Division 3, with 71% of their doubles matches won.
Kidlington Forum players also won several of the individual awards:
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Karl Bushell won the Warner Cup awarded for the most wins in Division 1.
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Joe McKenna-Jones jointly won the award for the most wins in Division 4,
and was awarded the prize for the best junior newcomer to the league.
Joe receives his best junior newcomer prize. -
Simon Price and Vicky Coll won the prizes for best junior boy and girl of the year, respectively.
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Reece Chamdal won the award for the best junior player of the year.
Many congratulations to Forum G , who beat Vikings D by 62 points!
On Sunday 2nd March 2014, the annual Town versus Gown match took place at the Iffley Road gym, involving several Kidlington Forum players. Overall, the contests ended up all square, with the University taking the Men's 1st team event 7-3, the Men's 2nds tied at 5-5, and the City Ladies decisive winners at 9-1.
Shunko Cook, Christine Scaysbrook and Louise Felton made their debuts for the City, and along with Nikki Francis and Sharon Curtis made up a strong quintet. Shunko's short pimple pen-hold style caused havoc from the start, and neither she nor Christine dropped a game in their singles matches. Nikki Francis fought hard to come through against both Kate Bedwin (in 5) and Jessie Cao (in 4). The City Ladies were well on top, but Kate and Jessie took the 1st pair doubles to get the University on the score-sheet.
Students Kristofer Hammarback, Paul Erdunast and Adam Stanway dominated the Men's 1st team match, with the City's Julian Lawton-Smith and Andrew Legge just keeping the City team in the hunt. The Men's 2nds was a protracted struggle, with junior Jamie Felton once again involved in marathon matches. Pichtipong Juiwong and Huw Morgan took two singles wins each, but it needed a last ditch 5th game effort from Pichtipong and Jamie to secure a hard fought draw for City.
[Full scores and more photos are available from the ODTTA website.]
On Sunday 9th February, several Kidlington players took part in the Junior and Senior events of Oxfordshire Inter-League competition held at Moreton TTC, between the following four teams: Oxford 1, Oxford 2, Didcot & Banbury.
The senior teams of Banbury and Oxford 1 dominated the morning’s proceedings with decisive victories over Didcot and Oxford 2. The second Oxford team battled well throughout the day, with both Chris Smith and Fraser Harris mounting a stiff challenge on their higher ranked and more experienced opponents. First year Kidlington junior, Kristelle Brook, justified her selection for the senior event by taking both Nikki Francis (Banbury) and Birgit Muller (Didcot) the distance, losing to Nikki at deuce in the 5th, but defeating Birgit in the decider. She also played well in the Mixed Doubles, partnering Chris Smith, and Oxford 2 got their reward at the end of the day with a win over Didcot, for whom the redoubtable veterans Nat Richardson and Neil Hurford put in a fine shift throughout.
The climax of the event came in a superb confrontation between Banbury and Oxford 1. With wins for Jason Tustain over Oxford captain, Karl Bushell and for Tony Gorman and Nikki Francis in the mixed doubles, Banbury threatened to pull off a surprise; however Andy Misseldine held firm for Oxford to defeat both Jason and Tony Gorman, Janet Brown won her women’s singles and Karl Bushell got the better of Tony over five close games to bring home the trophy for Oxford 1.
In the junior event, Josh Selby (12) upset the apple cart, recording fine wins for Oxford 2 over Didcot’s Niall Harris and Oxford 1’s Fabian Audifferen. That apart, it was one way traffic for the two top teams, although Banbury’s Reuben Cox also managed to overturn Fabian. Oxford 2, captained by Ben Neumeier, competed well throughout the day and just managed to edge out Banbury for 3rd place, with hard fought wins for Joe McKenna-Jones (13) over Kit Lamb and for John Ho (13) over Jordan Lafferty. As in the seniors, all built up to a final duel between the two top teams, in this case Didcot and Oxford 1, but the key encounters went Oxford’s way. Fabian’s unique style of play proved to be too much for Niall; Kavan Warrender fought a long, hard, but ultimately losing battle against Oxford’s Mr Consistent, Jamie Felton, and Oxford no 1, Simon Price, held his concentration together to beat both Ethan Ball and Niall. Kavan recovered to put Didcot on the scoreboard by beating Fabian, but in the very last match completed, Jamie altered his tactics astutely to cater for Ethan’s fluent hitting and just came home at 14-12 in the 5th to complete a third 5-1 win for Oxford.