TT Title To Tin Tin:

(Report by Rory Scott-Referee)

36 men & 12 women contested the recent Sussex Series Senior 2 Star played at K2 Leisure Centre, Crawley. Many thanks to Heritage Oil, Griffin Security & Technology, Ray Hole Architects & Tees Sports for their sponsorship of the event.

The Women’s event was limited to 12 players forming two initial groups of six players all playing each other. The standard was high with the top seed being England no. 4 rated Egle Adomelyte (Mi). Second seed was no. 5 ranked Lauren Spink (Nk) and third seed was England no. 3 junior Tin-Tin Ho (Mi).

Group 1 was won by England junior no. 14 Jasmin Ould, who had a massive win over the top seed Egle, who is over 800 points higher in the ratings. However, this is not the first time she has beaten Egle, as she beat her 12-10 in the fifth in a Grand Prix some years ago. Adomelyte duly took second place in the group with England no. 1 veteran, Sanya Clements (Do) in third.

Group 2 went to an undefeated Tin-Tin Ho, who had a top class win over Spink, who is 12 places and almost 400 ranking points above her. Spink took second place and another junior, a Sussex player and former national U11s champion, Emma Torkington took the third spot. These six players formed a top group and each played the other three players whom they had not already played, with earlier results counting towards the group result.

Egle showed her mental strength by taking two tough five-setters over Torkington and Ho, both 11-8 in the decider. Torkington won her own 11-8 fifth game match against Ould. Spink denied Adomelyte of her chance of winning the top prize in three games. So both Ho and Spink ended up with four wins each. The title went to the 13-year-old by virtue of the fact she had beaten Lauren. Third place went to Egle with three wins and Ould finished in fourth.

Tin-Tin added the £600 prize money to the £500 won in the Sussex Series Junior 2 Star in January. I am sure this £1100 will do much to help in the further development of the Cadet & Junior International player. Long may ‘The Adventures of Tin Tin’ continue. The lower group was won by ‘Hong Kongian’ Yuki Wat, who resides in Sussex, who had win the Mixed Band 3 the day before in the junior event.

Kazeem: Cream of The Crop:

The men’s event originally had 40 players, but four failed to show on the day, which did mean some of the players got less matches. However, this was offset somewhat, by merging the two lower bands in the second round. The format was three seeded qualification rounds to form seven bands of five (originally was supposed to be eight bands and band seven became a group of six).

There were some upsets in the qualification rounds, none more so than England no. 10 cadet (unranked at senior level) beating England no. 125 in the men’s list, Daniel Kolesnik (Gs) 3-0. Gabriel’s London Academy club mate Omar Khasssal (Mi) (England no. 5 U13) was also making waves, first defeating Alex Forshaw (Sx) and then Bipin Majithia (Sx). Omar is also not ranked at senior level but with wins over players with 1511 & 1723 points respectively, that will not last long.

Maybe the most significant match in the qualification rounds was that between Daniel Basterfield (Mi) (England no. 31) and Gergely Urban (He) (England no. 43). They had a titanic battle to see which one of them would end up in the top group. Of course it went to five games and in the end the lower ranked Urban prevailed 11-9 in the fifth in a tense finale to make the top 5 and a chance at winning the prize money. The others joining Urban in the top group were the top four seeds Kazeem Adeleke (Mi), Craig Bryant (Sx), Garth Kinlocke (Ha) and Neil Charles (E). They all had comfortable journeys to group A.

There were a couple of unexpected results in the top group with fourth seed Charles downing third seed Kinlocke in three games and sixth seed Urban accounting for second seed Bryant in four. It all came down to the game between the top two seeds. Kazeem had won all of his so far and Bryant had lost one. However, if Bryant defeated Kazeem he would be champion, as they would have had the same number of wins but he would have beaten Kazeem.

It could not have been tighter. Kazeem took the first game, only to be pegged back to 2-1 to Craig. Then Kazeem took the fourth 11-9 to set up a tense final game. Bryant led most of the way through the fifth and in fact, led 10-8, but some skilled play and some good fortune from Adeleke brought home the title 12-10.

For his efforts he was awarded £300, not to mention a gold medal. The top four all got cash prizes. Bryant finished second on countback with Neil who came third and Kinlocke was fourth again on countback with Gergely. Band 2 was won by Daniel Basterfield with a five game win over John Dennison (E), Daniel Kolesnik took band 3 in a three-way countback, Zaid Doraid (Mi) came out on top in band 4 with a couple of close five game wins, young Omar was the victor in band 5 but with a 14-12 in the deciding game win over Jamal Dennison (E), Alex Forshaw topped band 6 again with two five game matches and, last but not least, Alex Hill (Sx), who had lost two five game matches in the qualifying rounds, triumphed in band 7 with four easy wins and one tough five game match with Stephen Hoad (Sx). All the bands winners were awarded medals.

The next Sussex tournament is The Sussex Satellite Grand Prix on 31st March and 1st April for which entries are still being accepted. Then there is the Crawley 2 Star for U11s, U13s, U15s, U18s, Seniors and Veterans on Friday evening 13th April. Next up are the Sussex Series Junior 2 Stars on 21st April and 16th June. See below for full placings list for 26th Feb.

Men’s Placings:

1) Kazeem Adeleke (Mi)

2) Craig Bryant (Sx)

3) Neil Charles (E)

4) Garth Kinlocke (Ha)

5) Gergely Urban (He)

6) Daniel Basterfield (Mi)

7) Liam McTiernan (Bk)

8) Gabriel Achampong (Mi)

9) John Dennison (E)

10) Ping Ho (Mi)

11) Daniel Kolesnik (Gs)

12) Myles Collins (Sy)

13) Bryan Kwan (Sx)

14) Kevin Read (E)

15) Radovan Zivkovic (Mi)

16) Zaid Doraid (Mi)

17) Leo Veinsreider (Sy)

18) Finny Wilson (Sx)

19) Marek Mastalerczyk (He)

20) Joao Botas (Mi)

21) Omar Khassal (Mi)

22) Jamal Dennison (E)

23) Haroon Ali (E)

24) Shane Clark (Mi)

25) Jake Coombes (K)

26) Alex Forshaw (Sx)

27) Gary Pells (K)

28) Dean Rose (K)

29) Bipin Majithia (Sx)

30) Mark Collins (Sx)

31) Alex Hill (Sx)

32) Stephen Hoad (Sx)

33) Chris Pullinger (Sy)

34) Dennis Hill (K)

35) Dale Campbell (K)

36) Andy Larner (K)

Ladies Placings:

1) Tin Tin Ho (Mi)

2) Lauren Spink (Nk)

3) Egle Adomelyte (Mi)

4) Jasmin Ould (K)

5) Sanya Clements (Do)

6) Emma Torkington (Sx)

7) Yuki Wat (Sx)

8) Lois Peake (Sx)

9) Jurate Brazaityte (K)

10) Nadini Abeygunawardana (Sx)

11) Nora Szabo (Sy)

12) Sally Hughes (Sx)