County Leagues [Archive] - Table Tennis Forum

DaveR

11-11-2008, 11:42 AM

Hampshire’s reign as County Championships Premier Champions looks all but over after the first round of fixtures recently held at Cippenham TTC.

At the end of all the counties first three fixtures it is a three way tie between Derbyshire, Middlesex and Devonshire who are unbeaten with three wins each, with Middlesex just ahead of their two rivals with a slightly superior sets difference.

It was a solid rather than spectacular effort from newcomers Middlesex with only Igor Morias remaining unbeaten with four wins from four but with Zak Zilesnick, Ping Ho and Tin Tin Ho only dropping one set each and Sushmita Limbu just dropping two it was job done for the recently promoted county.

Middlesex began with a comfortable 8 -2 victory against Lincolnshire who disappointed the organisers by not having a girl player in their ranks and on Sunday they began with a thrilling 6-4 victory against reigning champions Hampshire for whom Matthew Ware and Tressa Armitage were unbeaten, but Middlesex were able to take the remaining rubbers to claim victory, including a deciding set 9-11, 11-7, 11-13, 11-9, 11-6 victory by Morais over Ruihao Zhang to claim the vital 6th set.

Sunday afternoon saw a comprehensive 9-1 victory against the other newcomers South Yorkshire with just Limbu being unable to give her team a whitewash as she was beaten in a five game thriller by Laura Robinson 11-8, 4-11, 11-8, 6-11, 7-11.

Derbyshire are just a set behind Middlesex and have only themselves to blame as they could well have been in a better position as they were only able to field one girl in Lucy Davidson.

Two of the three boys fielded by Derbyshire were unbeaten as Liam Pitchford, and Sean Cullen recorded perfect records from their 6 starts and with Daniel Lowe dropping just one set to Matthew Ware in a 7-3 victory the boys of Derbyshire have put their county in a strong position.

Davidson too only dropped one set, to Yorkshire’s Mary Fuller but was unable to get a game against Lincolnshire as she won 3 from 4 and it will be critical to Derbyshire’s chances that another girls is able to make the second weekend to join Davidson.

Devonshire had a slightly tougher time than their two rivals, although you could not ask for better than three wins as they beat Sussex and Yorkshire 6-4 and recorded a solid 8-2 victory over Lincolnshire.

Chris Smith lead the way with an impressive record of six wins from No 2 and with No 1 Richard Marshall only dropping one set from his six, the south coast team have a sold look about them and will be looking for a good finish when all the teams meet up again in March, when the outcome of this highly competitive division will be determined