Davison and Gowlett double act sink Chelmsford A

Bocking A are the early leaders in division one of the Chelmsford & District Table Tennis League and after beating bottom team Chelmsford A 9-1 they hold a six point lead over Maldon B. Paul Davison (three wins), Kevin Gowlett (three wins) and Jon Hill (two wins) were all instrumental in what was a strong team performance, whilst Waseem Qureshi with a 3-0 win over Jon Hill picked up Chelmsford’s victory. Second-placed Maldon B were also impressive winners and Alex Abbott led them to a 8-2 win over Elmtree Excalibur A. Hamish Innes and Paul Sayer both won twice for Maldon with Innes fighting back strongly from 2-0 down to beat Gary Baker: 9-11, 9-11, 11-5, 11-5, 11-5. Danbury A bolstered by the inclusion of both Antony Greenwood and Mike Andrews were also 8-2 winners, beating Writtle A. Greenwood completed an excellent evening for his side by beating Kevin Worthington 11-8, 11-8, 11-2.

Maldon A introduced Django Fung (who is best known in Snooker circles as the Manager of Judd Trump) to the Chelmsford League in their match with Writtle A and it was a the highly ranked Southend and Romford League player who dominated the action. He won his three singles, which included a five game win over Paul Cuming (6-11, 11-8, 11-8, 7-11, 11-6) as Maldon won 8-2. OCs A continue to prosper and they beat both Writtle A and ECC A 6-4. The steadying hand of Braintree League Men’s Singles Champion Peter Hayden played a large part in these two wins as he won his six singles. Chelmsford Junior Champion Brandon Crouchman is clearly relishing playing at this level and he won four out of six singles in these two matches. This included a 11-9, 11-13, 11-9, 6-11, 13-15 defeat against Writtle’s Kevin Worthington and an excellent 9-11, 11-6, 11-7, 11-5 win over ECC’s Lucy Wang. Scott Dowsett sealed OCs’ win in the second match with a fine 12-14, 11-6, 7-11, 11-8, 11-7 victory against ECC’s Reuben Okai.

Mike Johnston starred for Chelmsford B as they held ECC B to a 5-5 draw in division two. Johnston scored a fine hat-trick of victories over Ken James, Simon Webber and Gary Brignall. His 11-8, 9-11, 11-6, 3-11, 11-9 win over Brignall in the last game of the might sealed the draw for his team. Elmtree Excalibur B are in second place and both Gary Cattermole and Peter Maynard remained undefeated as they overcame Hatfield Peverel A 8-2.

Elmtree Excalibur D jumped into second place in division three after hammering OCs D 9-1. Tony Hallett (two wins), Rod MacLennan (three wins) and Steve Cheesman (three wins) dominated the action. Elmtree Excalibur D also beat OCs C 6-4 and this time it was Hallett who remained undefeated whilst Frank Hodge and Jack Crook both gained excellent five games wins over Steve Cheesman. Elsewhere, Danbury E had an undefeated Graham Briggs to thank as they defeated Danbury F 7-3 whilst Paul Churn won his three singles as Rawreth A drew 5-5 with OCs C. Churn completed his hat-trick with one of the strangest scorelines of the season, defeating Jack Crook 10-12, 11-1, 12-10, 10-12, 11-1. Rawreth‘s Mike Worship won twice and he came within a whisker of scoring a hat-trick. Worship just missed out against John Watts 11-5,11-4, 8-11, 9-11, 12-14. Danbury D had Peter Hance to thank as they beat ECC D 7-3. Hance’s win over Richard Storey was also notable for the strange scoreline involved with Hance coming out on top 21-19, 11-1, 12-10.

In division four Danbury G had Dave Goody firing on all cylinders as they beat Writtle C 7-3. Brian Ellis and Dave Powell both won twice whilst Brian Steward with two victories fared best of the Writtle players. Steward defeated Brian Ellis 11-13, 6-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-9 in a hard-fought last game of the night. Danbury H won 6-4, and their victims were Elmtree Excalibur E. An undefeated Norman Hayes was the difference between the two sides and he completed his hat-trick with a 9-11, 10-12, 11-5, 12-10, 11-8 victory against John Marshall in the final game of the evening.

Chelmsford F made it four wins out of five in division five after notching up two convincing victories. They beat Chelmsford G 8-2 and OCs G 9-1. Richard Upson and Richard Baxter both won their three singles against OCs G whilst Mark Brown won all three times against Chelmsford G. OC’s F moved into fourth place by beating OCs H 10-0. Tom Barker, Nat Ravlic and Frank Hodge were all undefeated. OCs E came out on top against Chelmsford G 8-2 with Tom Adam and Farooq Ahmed winning twice to counter the three singles successes picked up by Sarah Austin.

All players are requested to note that the ITTF Pro Tour Grand Finals are taking place at the London ExCel Centre from Thursday 24 November 2011 to Sunday 27 November 2011 and many of the best players in the World will be taking part in what is a “test event” for next year’s Olympic Games.

The current five leading players on the Men’s Pro Tour circuit are all Chinese, and include arguably the four biggest names in the game at present; World Number One Ma Long, current World Singles Champion Zhang Jike, the 2008 Olympic Men’s Singles Champion Ma Lin and the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Men’s Singles Runner-up Wang Hao.

Chinese players also dominate the Women’s Singles standings with current World Champion Ding Ning (China) in pole position followed by Guo Yan (China), Feng Tianwei (Singapore), Liu Shiwen (China) and Li Xiaxiao (China).

This is a fantastic opportunity to see a real showcase event in London and tickets can be obtained from the following website:

www.ticketmaster.co.uk/Ittf-Pro-Tour-Grand-Final-tickets/…/1628351

Steve Kerns

Press & Publicity Officer