Many of Britain’s leading junior table tennis players are travelling to the North East this weekend to play in the Tees Active Ltd Stockton-on-Tees Junior 4 Star Championships which take place at Thornaby Pavillion this weekend (October 26-27).

In the main event, the Junior Boys’ Singles, all of the top five English players have entered including leading players from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

The top seeds are Igor Morais from Middlesex and England no 2 Helshan Weerasinghe. Sam Mabey from Northampton and Daniel Lawrence from Kent are the third and fourth seeds.

In the Junior Girls’ Singles Emily Bolton, who is a member of the England team that participated in the European Youth Championships in Austria last August, is the top seed with Northampton’s Nicole Bird in second place.

In the Cadet Boy’s Singles top seed is Christopher Wheeler from Scotland who represents the Ormesby Club in the British League while Omar Khassal of Middlesex is the second seed. Leading Cleveland cadet, Alex Ward, takes the third seed position while Alex Ramsden from Northampton is fourth.

In the Cadet Girls’ Singles the top seed is Zahna Hall from Middlesex with Kate Nixon from Yorkshire second.

Play begins at Thornaby Pavilion on Saturday at 9.00 am with the rounds of the Cadet and Junior Team events. The Team Finals are scheduled to begin from 3.00 pm on Saturday.

The finals for the Cadet Singles are to be played from 6.00 pm.

The Under 18 Junior players take the stage on Sunday with the Junior Boys’ Singles Groups starting at 9.00 am.

The final session for the Junior Boys’ and Girls’ Singles commences at 2.30 pm on Sunday afternoon with the Grade 1 finals session scheduled for around 5.00 pm.

Spectators welcome.

Click to see the full Stockton-on-Tees draw here

Written by Alan Ransome (October 24, 2013)