ANOTHER TEENAGE CHAMPION

For the fourth consecutive year the Sutton & District Table Tennis league has a teenage open singles champion.  17 year old Mickel Miller (Crusaders) has 100% wins in the top division and carried that form into the closed championships, winning the final against Goran Maric (Graham Spicer) 11-7, 11-5, 11-8.

Last year’s singles champion, Liam Grant, had been called up to play at Burton-on-Trent in the Cadet Masters where he joined 13 of England’s top cadets.   Liam managed to finish among the top 10 in the country after an exhausting weekend of fierce competition.

In the doubles it was Steve Carpenter (Crusaders) and Goran Maric firstly surviving a tough semi final against Jeremy Wu and Steve Fagan (Eldon), winning from 2 games to nil down and then going on to win the final 11-7, 11-5, 11-6 against the Crusaders teenage pairing of Mickel Miller and Isabelle Joubeily.

Steve Carpenter was a double winner taking the veterans trophy against John Fannin (Graham Spicer) 11-7, 11-5, 11-6, but John went on to retain his Super Veterans title with victory over Jim Reeder (Eldon)11-8, 10-12, 11-6, 11-5

Paul Rowley (Deckers) retained his division 2 singles title for the third consecutive year in a tough final against Guy Webster (Crusaders) eventually getting home 6-11, 11-7, 11-5, 2-11, 11-2.

Jim Reeder was a double trophy winner taking the division 3 singles 11-5, 11-3, 12-10 against Steve Sharp (Rosehill) while Division 4 singles was an all Carshalton LTC affair with Tom Higgs beating Fred Fairs 11-6, 11-8, 11-9.

The handicap singles final was won convincingly by Andrew Jackson (Rosehill) beating Tony Stephens (Woodmansterne) 44-29.

Yet arguably the best final came in the Consolation Singles which was won in a tense match by Lee Farrier (Rosehill) 8-11, 11-7, 12-14, 11-6, 11-9 against Tom Higgs who became the 7^th player to take 2 trophies at the Championships.

The Ladies singles was won by Michelle McGovern (Ballards) who won the final 6-11, 11-6, 12-10, 11-8 against Isabelle Joubeily in her second final.   Isabelle celebrated her 13^th birthday only last month and potentially has a great future ahead of her.   Little doubt she will be back next season to replace her two silver medals with gold.

Images courtesy of Michael Loveder.

Three days after the main tournament the Junior Championships took place with the standard noticeably much higher overall than previous years. The league has so many good juniors. The Cadet (under 15) semi finals were fiercely contested with Isabelle Joubeily (Crusaders) beating Andrew Jackson (Rosehill) 5-11, 11-9, 11-8, 14-12 and Guy Webster (Crusaders) beating Andrew Chapman (Rosehill) 6-11, 11-5, 11-8, 11-13, 17-15.

The Final was yet another tense affair with both players showing remarkable temperament and won eventually by Guy Webster with a 9-11, 11-3, 6-11, 12-10, 11-6 victory over Isabelle Joubeily.

Unsurprisingly the main Junior (under 18) tournament was dominated by Michael Ho (Crusaders) currently with a senior ranking of 70 in England.   In his semi-final he was too good for Joseph Joubeily (Crusaders) 11-5, 11-1, 11-6 while Guy Webster and Isabelle Joubeily met again in the other semi-final in an even closer match than previously with Guy winning 11-8, 11-7, 9-11, 9-11, 14-12.     In the final Michael Ho beat Guy Webster 11-6, 11-3, 11-3.

Also, in the latest English Table Tennis Association national rankings published today, Isabelle Joubeily finds herself at England No 16 in the under 13’s category.  This makes her the new Surrey No 1 cadet girl.

 28^th February 2013