When Cippenham Table Tennis Club held its annual Club Championships over four evenings in the first half of May, it was Maciej “Magic” Dlogozima who played the starring role, winning both of the events he was eligible for, while Shae Thakker was the only player to retain a title.
The series of events commenced with the Veterans’ Singles in which Darren Brown carved his way through the field, beating all three seeds en route to take the title.
However, it was not all plain sailing for Brown. He was given a scare in his first round group by Lee Wirkhani who led 2-0 before Brown upped his game, equalised at 2-2, and then stormed the decider. His win over Keith Hall was much more straight-forward but then Brown claimed the scalp of his first seed when he beat Elroy Hull 3-1 in four tight games, all settled by the minimum two points.
The other two seeds were progressing nicely through their groups. Graham Trimming fought back from 1-0 down to defeat Zsolt Varga 3-1 and won more convincingly against Ike Greenberg. Lawrence Harvey had no trouble in defeating both Brian Guilloud and Elena Tant 3-0.
The winners of the three groups then contested a final round-robin to decide the ultimate positions. Trimming started with a convincing 3-0 win over Harvey and then Brown beat the same player 3-1. It In the deciding match, Brown won both the first two games 11-9 but Trimming hit back to equalise 11-5, 11-6. When Trimming led 5-3 in the fifth game it seemed as if the tide had turned but Brown was not finished and clinched the title with another 11-9 win.
Two events were played during the second week, but on separate evenings. First was the Junior Singles. The top four seeds all won their preliminary round groups comfortably. The two quarter-finals produced wins for Holly Long, 3-0 over Sonny Dalston, and for Douglas Claridge-Hansen, who beat Harry Coles 3-1.
The runs of both Long and Claridge-Hansen were then ended in the semi-finals by Shae Thakker and William Fricker although Claridge-Hansen did take one end off Fricker.
The final itself produced a third successive Junior Singles title for Shae Thakker who beat the 2014 champion William Fricker in three comfortable straight games.
The following day it was the Open Doubles. The ultimate winners were “Magic” Dlogozima and Lawrence Harvey who won all four of their matches but were pushed very hard by the runners-up Elroy Hull and Graham Trimming.
In the match that decided the destiny of the title, Dlogozima and Harvey recovered from 8-6 down in the first game and 8-3 and 10-6 in the second to go 2-0 up. Hull and Trimming fought back to square the match 2-2, saving a match point in the fourth along the way, and then the fifth game was nip and tuck with the winners ultimately securing the match 11-8.
The championships concluded with the main event, the Open Singles. All three seeds made it through the first group stage: defending champion Ricky Hardcastle, 2015 champion Shae Thakker and “Magic” Dlogozima although Dlogozima had to recover from 2-1 down to defeat Graham Trimming whose hopes had already been dented by losing in the fifth to Keith Hall. The three group winners then played a further round-robin to determine the destiny of the title.
Once into that final stage, Dlogozima stepped up a gear and beat both Hardcastle and Thakker 3-1 although Thakker did hold 10-6 in the fourth game and was therefore desperately close to taking the match to a decider. Dlugozima thus completed the “double” having also triumphed with Lawrence Harvey in the Open Doubles the previous week.
Thakker took the runners-up medal by beating current Maidenhead League Men’s Singles champion Ricky Hardcastle 3-0.
Results:
| Event | Winner(s) | Runner(s)-up |
| Open Singles | Maciej Dlogozima | Shae Thakker |
| Open Doubles | Maciej Dlogozima & Lawrence Harvey | Elroy Hull & Graham Trimming |
| Veterans’ Singles | Darren Brown | Graham Trimming |
| Junior Singles | Shae Thakker | William Fricker |