GUILDFORD CLOSED TOURNAMENT 2014 TOURNAMENT

GUILDFORD CLOSED TOURNAMENT 2014
TOURNAMENT REVIEW
Saturday’s events started off with the ladies singles and doubles, mixed doubles and open doubles.
With a select group of players involved in multiple events and some players expressing time
constraints due to other commitments on the Sunday it was decided to hold both the ladies singles
and mixed doubles events on a best of 3 games basis. This may not have been seen as ideal by all
concerned but compromises had to be made.
With 5 entrants in the ladies singles a round robin format was used with everybody playing 4
matches. Going into the 10th and final match of the group Fei Fei Pei and Sarah Horsnell were both
unbeaten and after a close contest Fei Fei edged home 11-8 in the deciding game. With no-one to
partner Carole Ingram the ladies doubles was a straight final with the pairing of Sarah Horsnell and
Shula Laws beating Alison Cheung and Fei Fei Pei by 3 games to 1.
With only the 5 ladies available the mixed doubles was also played in a round robin format. Sarah
Horsnell and her partner Michael Hill went through the group unbeaten with Fei Fei Pei/Robin
Honey and Alison Cheung/Adam Laws recording 2 victories each. The runners up spot however went
to Fei Fei/Robin as they had beaten Alison/Adam during the group games.
We had 12 pairs in the open doubles with opening matches played in groups of 3, the group winners
and runners up progressing through to the knockout stages. The semi-finals saw victories for Hari
Gehlot/ Clive Banham over Robin Honey/Adam Laws by 3 games to 1 and Michael Hill/Chris Bush
who beat Andy Mudie/Micky Lang 11-5 in the 5th game. In the final Hari/Clive won through 5-11, 114, 11-7, 11-7.
28 players contested the open singles, starting with 7 groups of 4 which led (eventually) to 16
players making it through to the knockout stages. The 12 that did not make the knockout were
invited to take part in the consolation event but by this time we had a few retirees due to illness,
injury and in some cases just plain knackered! From those that survived Vijay Bhaskar won the first
semi final against Rob Gladstone but any thoughts of an all Allianz consolation final were ended
when Paul Massey beat Manoj Shah 3-0. The final went to 4 with Vijay winning 9, -10, 6, 6.
In the semi finals of the main event Chris Bush played Hari Gehlot with Matt Pernet taking on Krasi
Ivanov. Although all 3 games were close Matt overcame Krasi 10, 8, 8 to book his place in the final.
The scores in the second semi were interesting to say the least. Chris won games 1 and 3
comfortably: ,4 and ,2 with Hari winning the 2nd game ,9. Hari levelled the match by taking the 4th
game 16-14 and the decider could have gone either way with Chris eventually winning 15-13. The
final was dominated by Chris with Matt seemingly not getting his tactics quite right on the day – 119, 11-3, 11-8 being the final outcome.
Sunday morning saw an early start with divisional and cadet events beginning at 9am. I’ll keep it
polite and say that some of the divisional entries were disappointing – just 2 players entering from
Division 3 for example.
We had 6 cadet players divided into 2 groups with the top players from each group contesting 1st
and 2nd place, the 2nd ranked players from each group contesting 3rd and 4th place etc. Milan Sajiv
and Hudson Foley won their respective groups with Hudson just edging home in the play off match
12-10, 11-7, 12-10. Nikit Sajiv got the better of Cameron McAdam in 4 games to take 3rd place and
Charlie Cunningham beat George Harry for 5th spot. There was a doubles contest but the scoresheet
indicates that not all the matches were played so I’ve no idea of the final outcome in this event.
Five of the 6 cadets then went on to contest the juniors where they were joined by Ben Fereday.
Again players were divided into 2 groups of 3 with Hudson and Ben winning their respective groups.
Hudson then went on to win his second event of the day with a 3-0 victory over Ben. In the junior
doubles Hudson was paired with Nikit and Ben with Milan. A close contest resulted in an 11-9
deciding game victory for Hudson/Nikit.
With only 6 entrants across divisions 3 and 4 a certain degree of creativity in the singles was
exercised by the organiser to ensure players got a decent number of games. As a result Carsten
Horne beat Sajiv Swamy 3-1 in the division 3 singles and Tony Laws overcame Mick Stanners 11-9 in
the deciding game in Division 4. Not a lot of creativity possible with just 3 pairs in the doubles so
Carsten and Sajiv eventually won a round robin event.
Division 1 only provided a 4 player entry, it would have been 5 but for a late withdrawal through
injury by Ian Saxby. So we had a round robin event from which Manoj Shah emerged unbeaten with
Joel Clancy taking the runners up spot. Also involved were Vijay Bhaskar who edged out Peter
Palmer to secure 3rd place in the group. Peter and Joel then combined to beat Vijay and Manoj 3-0 in
the doubles final.
We had 8 entries in the Premier singles with the top 8 seeds from the open singles not being eligible
to enter. After some hard fought games the semi finals saw John Robinson overcome Anthony
Johnson 3-1 with Ross Saxby getting the better of Shaun Robertson by a 3-0 scoreline. I’m pretty
sure that Ross won the final 3-0 but whoever umpired the game has put the scores down in John’s
favour and then written ‘Ross’ in the winner section. Nothing like covering all the options I guess.
4 pairs contested the Premier doubles and a surprise 16-14 in the 5th victory for Rob Gladstone/Rod
Kay over Hari Gehlot/Clive Banham opened the way for Ross Saxby/Shaun Robertson to lift the
doubles title – provided they could also beat Hari/Clive in the last game of the event. After winning
the first 2 games Ross/Shaun decided to take a rest game, losing 11-1, before Hari/Clive won the 4th
to level the match. However Ross/Shaun got their act together in the 5th to take it comfortably 11-5.
By virtue of the victory against Hari/Clive and a win against Richard Seymour/Paul Massey 2nd place
in the group went to Rob and Rod.
After some close and hard fought group matches the 11 entrants from Division 2 were whittled
down to a final four with Hudson Foley defeating James Wyncoll 3-1 in a close contest and Adrian
Sharp getting the better of team mate Tim O’Reilly by the same scoreline. The final was a very tight,
and at times noisy affair, with Hudson overcoming his more experienced opponent 13-11 in the 5th.
In the division 2 doubles we saw semi final victories for Adrian/Tim over Rakesh Kumar/Brian Hartles
and James Wyncoll/Paul Rumble against James Sellen/Ady Mitchell – 3-1 being the winning margin
in both cases. The final was also a 3-1 result – in favour of Adrian and Tim.
And so on to the final events of the weekend – Veterans and Masters. A low initial entry coupled
with a few other issues meant we only had 3 pairs involved in the veterans doubles with Joel
Clancy/Peter Palmer picking up their second title of the day. Adrian Sharp/Ady Mitchell secured 2nd
spot courtesy of a 12-10 in the 5th victory over James Sellen/Tim O’Reilly.
Twelve of the league’s finest veterans contest the singles event and following the group stages and
one knockout round we reached the semi final stage with Matt Pernet eventually overcoming John
Robinson 11-6 in the 5th with Hari Gehlot having a slightly easier 3-1 victory over Richard Seymour.
The final between Hari and Matt was the best game I witnessed all weekend. Hari took a 2-0 lead
and seemed to be heading for a comfortable victory. Matt came back to take the next 2 games 11-8,
11-9 and we were set for a decider. And what a decider it was – never more than a couple of points
in it there were some incredible rallies with both players giving it everything. Matt had match point
at 10-9 but Hari game back to eventually take the match 12-10.
In the Masters an initial entry of 6 resulted in semi finals involving John Robinson against Richard
Seymour and Hari Gehlot against Clive Banham. John eventually overcame Richard 3-1 whilst Hari
had a straight games victory over Clive. An excellent final followed with Hari getting the better of
John 5-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-6.
And so at around 7.15 Sunday evening a long weekend of table tennis came to an end. I’d just like to
say a big ‘thank you’ to all those players that attended, to all those that umpired matches long after
you had been knocked and to all those that helped in any way during the course of the weekend.
Special thanks to Tony Laws for all his assistance in too many areas to mention.
My final thoughts on the weekend are that the League need to review the whole tournament
format. The Vets and Masters finals were both excellent games and deserved to be played in front of
an appreciative audience. Three of us watched the Masters final, I don’t believe any more than that
watched the Veterans – such a shame. I don’t have any instant solutions to this ‘problem’ but maybe
the League should consider a finals evening for some of the senior events. The other issue is players
entering multiple events all scheduled for around the same time. For example Sunday morning saw
Hudson in the cadets, followed by the juniors as well as the division 2 singles and doubles –
apparently he couldn’t be in two places at once, what is wrong with the youth of today!
ROLL OF HONOUR
LADIES SINGLES:
Fei Fei Pei/Sarah Horsnell
LADIES DOUBLES:
Sarah Horsnell & Shula Laws/Alison Cheun and Fei Fei Pei
MIXED DOUBLES:
Sarah Horsnell & Michael Hill/Fei Fei Pei and Robin Honey
OPEN DOUBLES:
Hari Gehlot and Clive Banham/Michael Hill and Chris Bush
OPEN SINGLES:
Chris Bush/Matt Pernet
CONSOLATION:
Vijay Bhaskar/Paul Massey
CADET SINGLES:
Hudson Foley/Milan Sajiv
JUNIOR SINGLES:
Hudson Foley/Ben Fereday
JUNIOR DOUBLES:
Hudson Foley and Nikit Sajiv/Ben Fereday and Milan Sajiv
DIVISION 4 SINGLES:
Tony Laws/Mick Stanners
DIVISION 3 SINGLES:
Carsten Horne/Sajiv Swamy
DIVISION 3/4 DOUBLES: Carsten Horne and Sajiv Swamy
DIVISION 2 SINGLES:
Hudson Foley/Adrian Sharp
DIVISION 2 DOUBLES:
Adrian Sharp and Tim O’Reilly/James Wyncoll and Paul Rumble
DIVISION 1 SINGLES:
Manoj Shah/Joel Clancy
DIVISION 1 DOUBLES:
Joel Clancy and Peter Palmer/Vijay Bhaskar and Manoj Shah
PREMIER SINGLES:
Ross Saxby/John Robinson
PREMIER DOUBLES:
Ross Saxby and Shaun Robertson/Rob Gladstone and Rod Kay
VETERANS DOUBLES:
Joel Clancy and Peter Palmer/Adrian Sharp and Ady Mitchell
VETERANS SINGLES:
Hari Gehlot/Matt Pernet
MASTERS SINGLES:
Hari Gehlot/John Robinson

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