Bournemouth One Star

On Saturday, Portchester School, Bournemouth, hosted its second ETTA One Star Tournament of the season in their new purpose built 24 table venue Sports Hall. Due to popular demand, a senior’s tournament was also added to the normal cadet and junior events.

With just under 100 entries, over 40 of these being Cadets, the stage was set for an epic event. It was great to see a number of younger Cadets taking part in their first tournament and performing with skill and style.

The morning saw the Senior Men’s, Ladies and Cadet tournaments.

In the Seniors, the top two seeds, Nathan Bingham and Steve Foster cruised through to the final, with Stephen taking the trophy.  In the Senior Consolation event, Tom Chamberlain proved too strong for Plymouth’s Billy Harvey. Billy though was proud to be taking his new silverware back to his club in Plymouth.

In the Cadet boys, a shock upset in the early rounds saw Niall Harris beat top seed Leo Long! Niall then managed to continue this great run of form meeting Matthew Daish in the final. Matthew displayed a solid all-round game to put an end to Niall’s dreams of a first tournament win.  Peter Daish and Jacob Elliott also excelled by gaining their highest ever tournament standings in third and fourth places.

In the Girls Cadets, local girls Ruth and Emma ended up battling it out in the final.  On this occasion, Ruth proved victorious.

In the Senior Ladies Sibyl Bartlett, playing her first ranking tournament, showed no nerves coming runner up to the experienced top seed Margaret White.

A special award for “Player of the Day” was given to Ryan Pickup for all-round excellence and commitment.

The afternoon saw the Junior Boys event. Josh Warren, Michael Hebdige, Leo Long and Matthew Daish all made it through to the semi-finals. After two tight semi-finals with Matthew Daish beating Leo Long and Michael Hebdige managing to reverse his result against Josh in the group stages, both made it through to the afternoon final. Matthew Daish, with further confidence from his Cadet win, managed to secure the Cadet and Junior double, beating Michael in four ends.

Many thanks as always to John Fox for his meticulous organisation and help, and to Dave Wiles for officiating and assisting three of our local umpires to pass their county umpires course and finally to the large number of volunteers, who make these great events possible.

The next Bournemouth One Star will hopefully be in October and hopes to also include a Veterans event….Watch this space!