Sixty-four players made it to the 2nd Sussex Series Junior 2 Star of the season on 14th Jan in K2 Leisure Centre. There was a high quality entry in the Girls Grade 1 event, proven by the fact that the no. 2 junior girl in England only ended up in 7th place. Other than the junior masters, there are not many events in the season with such high quality & high no. of competitive matches for all players, as all the girls had 8 matches each.

In Group 1 the top seed for the event, Yolanda King of Sussex, lost twice-to Welsh Junior International, Angharad Phillips and also to the unranked ex-Hong Kong junior international now living in Sussex, Yuki Wat. In addition, Yolanda scraped a victory vs Angharad’s twin sister Megan 11-9 in the fifth. When the twins faced each other, it was a close call as usual with Megan prevailing 11-8 in the decider on this occasion.

There were some other tight matches with Angharad overcoming Jasmine Ould (K) in five games and Yuki getting the better of Lois Peake (Sx) also in five. Megan topped the group by virtue of having beaten Angharad and third place went to Yuki for having beaten Yolanda. The twins and Yuki therefore entered the Group A for the afternoon. Jasmine (1 win) & Lois (no wins) joined Yolanda in Group B in the afternoon.

In Group 2 there were some more count back situations with both second seed Tressa Armitage (Ha) & Maria Tsaptsinos (Bk) ending up with three wins each and Emma Torkington (Sx) & Emma Tovey (K) banking two wins apiece. Tsaptsinos clinched second place in the group, as she had beaten Armitage while Tovey finished the higher of the Emmas, having been victorious over Torkington. Third seed, Tin-Tin Ho was undefeated in the group despite at one point trailing 2-1 in sets to Tressa. She finished strongly in games four and five winning 11-6, 11-3. This meant that Tin-Tin, Maria and Tressa took their expected places in the Group A. Ella Patel (E) (no wins), & both Emmas joined Group B.

In Group A Tin-Tin again emerged unscathed, this time with no five setters, although she was pushed hard by Angharad. Her reward was £500 in cash! Second place went to Megan, by virtue of her earlier defeat of her sister, a match which cost Angharad £200, as Megan won £300 & Angharad £100. Maria finished in fourth place & Tressa fifth. In Group B, Yolanda got her game going (if a little late), by reeling off three straight set victories to top the group. Tovey came second & Torkington third.

Savill Savours Success:

There was another strong entry for Band 1 of the Mixed event, headed by U13 International Luke Savill (K), Hong Kong player Bryan Kwan (Sx), winner of the last Sussex Series Band 1, Alex Forshaw (Sx) and Josh Robinson (Bd). In group 1 Adam Reed picked up from where he left off in the last Sussex Series, by exhibiting very good form to beat the higher ranked players, Savill (3-1) & Robinson (3-2). The match for second place in the group went to Savill in the fifth.

Bringing up third & fourth place in the group were Robinson and the lowest ranked player in the band, Armagan Huseyin (E), who had a great day, defeating six players ranked higher than him. In Group 2 Forshaw continued his great run of good results from 18th Dec, to win all seven matches, including the higher ranked Kwan in five sets. Bryan won his remaining games to finish second in the group and was followed by Ryan Williams (E) and Charlie Bates (E) both on four wins. Seeing as Ryan beat Charlie, he took third place. Charlie though had done very well to get the four wins, as he was the lowest player in the group and he also took group winner Forshaw to deep in the fifth end.

So in the afternoon the top four from each group went into Group A and the lower four into Group B. In Group A Luke beat all four opponents from the other group to end up with six wins. It did come down to the last match though with Luke vs Bryan playing. Luke won this encounter 3-1.

Alex won three to also finish on six wins. However, with Luke having beaten Alex, Luke was the Champion of Band A and the 12 year-old went home happy with £200 cash for his efforts. Alex’s consolation prize was £125, so he will be happy with that on top of the £200 from the last event, which went towards buying a table and robot. Kwan and Reed ended up both with five wins and Bryan came three as he had beaten Adam. Group B was won by Brian Gray, with Shane Clark in second place.

Blair has a Blast:

In Band 2 Group 1 was topped by no. 1 seed, Blair Phillip (K), although he was pushed to the fifth set by combination bat player James Arnold (Sx) in a match which contained a huge no. of extremely long rallies with neither player having the confidence to to really go for their shots. Phillip weathered the storm from being 2-1 down to win 11-6 in the fith. Blair was also extended to five sets by both Mason O’Neil (K) & Sam Lu (Sx).

Second place in the group went to Horsham’s Matt Van Yperen (Sx), whose tournament play has gone up a notch or two recently. He beat two players ranked higher than him, including a 3-0 win over Oliver Tyndall (Gs). Third in the group was Sam Lu (Sx), who is also doing very well recently. In Group 2 the player on form was Oliver Gritton (He). Towering above all of his opponents, he made short work of most, but was taken to 11-9 in the fifth by both Geme Ryder (Sy) & Toby Bartram (K). Geme was second in the group and Toby third. Top seed for the group was Jack Merton (K), who left the venue in the afternoon with three games still to play, without informing the organisers, after a string of poor results.

Group A in the afternoon saw a number of close matches for Blair. He beat Marcus Bracey (Sx) 3-0 (11-9, 12-10, 11-9) and beat Bartram 11-8 in the fifth. He lost 3-1 (12-14, 13-15, 13-11, 11-13) to Ryder. In the crunch match vs Gritton, Phillip won 11-4 in the fifth set. Gritton’s remaining matches were pretty straight forward. This meant that Blair & Tommy both had six wins in the top group, but as Blair had won when they met, it was he who was announced the victor of Band 3. Third place went to Ryder and fourth was Bartram. Group B was topped by Yochai Johnson (K), who did very well, as he was the second lowest player in the band. James Arnold was second.

Webb-Dixon Weaves his Web of Wonder:

Band 3 was two groups of 10 players. Third seed Jordan Ingles (He) won Group 1, winning eight of his matches, but losing 3-0 to Andrew Chapman (E). Darnell Hooper (K) also won eight matches, but was second on countback. Chapman came third with seven wins. Top seed Shaquille Webb-Dixon (K) won all nine of his matches to come first in the Group 2. However, Tiana Dennison (E) pushed him all the way to 11-9 in the fifth. Unranked Jake Coombes (K) won seven matches to come second in the group and another unranked player, Jake Mitchell (Mi) won six and came third in the group. An off-form second seed Ben Worley (Sx), struggled to live up to his new ranking and finished ninth in the group.

After the initial groups, all players played an additional two play-off matches against players who finished in a similar position in the other group to give each player his/her finishing position in the band. The battle for the top four positions went to Shaquille, as he beat both Jordan and Darnell 3-0 to deservedly take the winners £100 Tees Sport voucher. There was a countback between other three players, as they all won the same number of matches. Ingles ended up in second place with Coombes third and Hooper fourth. Maxwell Allen (Sy) won the contest between the third and fourth placed players to take fifth place.

The next Two Sussex Series events in K2 are on 25th Feb (Junior) & 26th Feb (Senior). Then there is the Sussex Satellite Grand Prix also in K2 on 31st March & 1st April. Forms are available on the entry forms section of the ETTA website.

See below for finishing positions for all players in all bands:

Girls Grade 1:

1) Tin Tin Ho (Mi)

2) Megan Phillips (WAL)

3) Angharad Phillips (WAL)

4) Maria Tsaptsinos (Bk)

5) Tressa Armitage (Ha)

6) Yuki Wat (Sx)

7) Yolanda King (Sx)

8 ) Emma Tovey (K)

9) Emma Torkington (Sx)

10) Jasmine Ould (K)

11) Lois Peake (Sx)

12) Ella Patel (E)

Band 1:

1) Luke Savill (K)

2) Alex Forshaw (Sx)

3) Bryan Kwan (Sx)

4) Adam Reed (Mi)

5) Josh Robinson (Bd)

6) Armagan Huseyin (E)

7) Ryan Williams (E)

8 ) Charlie Bates (E)

9) Brian Gray (K)

10) Shane Clark (Mi)

11) Finny Wilson (Sx)

12) Daniel Pound (Sx)

13) Adam Corell (Sx)

14) Jack Josephs (He)

15) Oliver Hack (Ha)

16) Olamide Wuraola (Sy)

Band 2:

1) Blair Phillip (K)

2) Tommy Gritton (He)

3) Geme Ryder (Sy)

4) Toby Bartram (K)

5) Matt Van Yperen (Sx)

6) Marcus Bracey (Sx)

7) Oliver Tyndall (Gs)

8 ) Sam Lu (Sx)

9) Yochai Johnson (K)

10) James Arnold (Sx)

11) Mason O’Neil (K)

12) Emma Sheen (Sx)

13) Regan O’Neil (K)

14) Josh Gallen (Bk)

15) Jack Merton (K)

16) William Goodstone (Sx)

Band 3:

1) Shaquille Webb-Dixon (K)

2) Jordan Ingles (He)

3) Jake Coombes (K)

4) Darnell Hooper (K)

5) Maxwell Allen (Sy)

6) Andrew Chapman (E)

7) Jake Mitchell (Mi)

8 ) Ashone Hooper (K)

9) Marley Cross (Sy)

10) Ryan Gregory (Sx)

11) Vatsal Raina (Sy)

12) Vyas Raina (Sy)

13) Tiana Dennison (E)

14) Michael Tunubu (Sy)

15) Luke Stewart (Sx)

16) David Busari (Sy)

17) Ben Worley (Sx)

18) Becky Hancock (K)

19) Ruth Marsden (K)

20) Kieran Bonner (Sx)