Haddenham Table Tennis Club took 7 of the 10 Trophies up for grabs at The Vale’s Annual Tournament that took place at Stoke Mandeville Stadium on 9 April. Andy Misseldine won three events, taking the Men’s Title for the fourth year running and The Veterans Title for the third year. In both events he had a fairly tranquil path to the final, only being stretched by Alan Cherry in the Veterans Semi Final. But he faced his Haddenham team mate, Mark Scott in both finals. Mark took one leg in losing the Men’s Title but in the Veterans he held a two leg lead over Andy before letting the tie slip away in the last three sets. A truly emphatic performance from the players representing this year’s league champions was capped with them teaming up to take the Men’s Doubles event, overcoming Alan Cherry and Craig Brown from the Bierton club. There were notable contributions in the main event this year from Jon Abungan who beat Dave Wackrill to reach the quarter finals and Tim Cheek who was eliminated by Mark Scott at the Semi Final stage.
Not to be outdone, Dawn Pearce from the Bucks club, took the Ladies Title for the third year in succession, beating Cynthia Kunschke in the semi final and then the improving Lianne Fisher in a four set final.
Aaron Taylor and Joe Gerrans raised the flag for the youngsters. Joe used his handicap advantage to the full to get to the final only to be beaten by the experience of Mark Penn from Haddenham. Mark played strong table tennis throughout the tournament, beating Paul O’Connell (Bucks) for the Division One Trophy. Aaron has shown considerable improvement all season, taking the Riddell and Junior Titles and he upset his Division Two opponents to reach the final. Clive Westbury from Sports possessed too much ability this time for Aaron, winning in three sets.
The Division Three Trophy had a fiercely competitive nature right from the first round. The semi finalists were Dave Stevens, Brian Whitehead, Ed Lock and Sankar Balan. Dave edged past Brian in five close sets, 11 – 9 in the fifth, whilst Sankar won in three against Ed, but by the closest margin in each set. With the contrasting styles of Dave and Sankar an interesting final produced a win for the calm and patient Dave Stevens.
Haddenham produced the mixed doubles winners in Cynthia Kunschke and Lee Mallick who had a creditable win in 5 sets, coming back from an early fifth set deficit, against Dave Wackrill and Dawn Pearce. Cynthia partnered Lianne Fisher from Sports to inflict another defeat on Dawn and partner Joyce Witney (Sports) in the Ladies Doubles.
This was an enjoyable day of Table Tennis for which we must thank the Organiser, David Ballard.