Cippenham Super 6 Veterans’ 2-Star Open (19.4.14)

Second title for Martin Gunn

Martin Gunn secured his second veterans’ title at Cippenham in as many years on Easter Saturday. Gunn was as happy as an Easter bunny after defeating top seed Hon Kau Choy in the final of the Cippenham Super 6 Veterans’ 2-Star Open. This title adds to the one won at the Five by Two Cippenham Senior and Veterans’ 1-Star Open last season.

Gunn’s toughest match actually came early on. In the preliminary round group stage he was taken to a deciding game by Paul Martindill but survived that scare to earn his place, as second seed, in the bottom half of the draw.

Meanwhile, top seed Choy was largely untroubled in his group while third seed Phil Snelson qualified even more easily. Fourth seed David Langham, however, did not have it all his own way. He was beaten by Steve Davis and had to settle for second place in his group. With a minimum of six players in each group and top three qualifying for the championship event, however, this did not prove a problem for Langham.

The unranked and unseeded Kevin Hill turned out to be a bit of a dark horse. Only Daniel Lucking, who took him to 11-9 in the fifth game, offered much resistance as Hill beat all six opponents to finish top of group five. He was not finished there, either, as he then went on to eliminate Graham Trimming and Steve Davis, the latter is a topsy-turvy match that finished 12-10 in the fifth, before losing 3-1 to Martin Gunn in a tightly contested semi-final.

Into the main draw and the pick of the first round matches were Paul Baker’s 3-2 win over Anthony Morris and Steve Davis’ similar scoreline against Radovan Zivkovic. Displaced fourth seed David Langham was dismissed 3-0 by Chris Price while former Cippenham player Steve Dorrell, making his second appearance of the season at Cippenham after a gap of twenty-two years, was eliminated by Chris Pickard. The quarter-finals saw Choy progress at the expense of Baker, who took one leg, Snelson terminate the run of Price and Gunn power his way past Pickard.

Four of the five group winners were thus pitched against one another in the semi-finals. In the pick of these the penholder Choy needed five games to get past Snelson while Gunn needed only four to overcome the defensive skills of Hill.

In the final, Martin Gunn proved just too powerful for the Nottinghamshire based Choy and ran out a 3-0 winner with only the second game providing any resistance.

Dean Rose, who mysteriously came bottom of his preliminary round group, recovered his form well enough to win the consolation event. He had a tough start against Steve Leven and only beat Cippenham’s Bassam Mocharrafie 3-2 in the semi-final. Waiting for him in the final was Daniel Lucking who succumbed 3-1.

The tournament was organised by Graham Trimming, refereed by Ken Phillips and attracted a decent entry of 31 players.

Results:

	Winner:	Runner-up:
Veterans’ Singles	Martin Gunn (Av)	Hon Kau Choy (Ng)
Veterans’ Consolation	Dean Rose (K)	Daniel Lucking (Ha)

by Graham Trimming (April 22, 2014)