Tournament Preview 2014 The annual Burnham and District Table Tennis League tournament will take place over the weekend of 22nd and 23rd March at William De Ferrers sports Centre in South Woodham Ferrers with a new record entry of over 100 players. The play will be spread over eight tables with room for spectators (who are most welcome) and with home made refreshments both hot and cold available from 8.45am on both days. If you are interested in joining a local club or just finding out more about table tennis in the area this is the place to come. Day one will feature the juniors and divisional events plus the ever popular handicap events. The juniors kick things off and predictions of winners here should be fairly straightforward although I am sure some of the group matches will be pretty unpredictable, in the Cadet singles (under 15) it would be a major shock if the top two seeds Sid Dorn and Zoe Davies do not make it to the final and Sid will be a big favourite to take that. In the junior boys it will also be a surprise should it not go with seeding with the holder Sam Lowman due to meet Sid Dorn in the final, again I think Sid may well come out on top. The junior doubles will be a bit more difficult to predict with Sam Lowman and Zoe Davies top seeds due to meet Cameron Gray and George Ashley in the final but the pairing of Jennie Crapnell and Kieran Stanley will be a threat. The Junior girls is probably the most difficult to call with them playing a round robin it is really open with Jennie Crapnell, Zoe Davies and Rebecca Lowman all having a good chance this event should see some close matches with, I suspect Jennie just coming out on top. The Fambridge trophy for division 3 players is another tough to call event with David Gatheral seeded one and rightly so but he will face a strong challenge from the other seeds, Jennie Crapnell, Mike Burton and Cameron Gray while George Ashley, Mitch Davies and John Skuse are all capable of mounting a challenge, I will go with the seeding committee and pick David Gatheral as my tip to beat George Ashley in the final. The restricted singles for division two players downwards is another difficult to predict with Ken Sheard the top seed and Ralph Gibson second seed but there are dangerous players throughout the draw, none more so than Chris Hancox who on his day can beat anyone at this level, others to watch are Dawn Baldry, Dave Goody, and Ciaran Whelan. I think the seeding is probably right although I really do think that if Chris Hancox is firing he has the game to beat everyone and my tip for a bit of a surprise package is the un-seeded Nick Duce. Later in the day we have the mixed open singles (excludes the top 8 men single seeds) which is a straight draw without seeds so can throw up some interesting clashes in early rounds, the top half of the draw looks to be the toughest with some of the fancied players in this half including Chris Buer, Eric Green, Charles Sweeney, Peter Mynard and Hamish Innes, I would expect the finalist from this half to come from that group and would probably make Charles Sweeney the favourite. The bottom half does not look quite as strong and I expect the semi final here to be contested by Hector Rogers and either Sid Dorn or Babul McLeod. It is madness to predict the handicap events although I will pick out some interesting pairings in the handicap doubles which is drawn at random like Bill Smith and Matthew Brown will be a very steady pair unlike Sam Lowman and Dawn Baldry who will be a very attacking pair, Sid Dorn and Glen Laing is a good mix of defense and attack and Nick Duce and Ben Matthews looks a well balanced pairing. And so to the Sunday events, starting with the mens singles which as ever will be a very well contested event with preliminary groups then eight groups of four to get to a last 16, John Monk the holder is seeded one with Kevin Read the second seed, Duncan Taylor is three and George Reeves is seeded four, Marko Jovic, Mark Stones, Keith Adams and Mina Sinkus make up the seeds five to eight but there are still some other quality players outside of the top eight, notably Ben Warner and Stuart Gibbs. The event is played to the semi-final stage even so predicting the four semi-finalists is tricky but I will go with, Kevin Read, Minda Sinkus, Duncan Taylor and Ben Warner, given that those four are all in the new under 40’s event I will go for a Kevin Read, Ben Warner final in that event. The ladies singles looks very open this year and top seeds Dawn Baldry and Maxine Abbott will no doubt come under pressure from Lin Attridge and Debbie Auvache, but I will go with the top two seeds to make it through to the finals night. The ladies doubles again looks to be a pretty open event with the holders, Dawn Baldry and Shirley Carroll likely to come under pressure from Maxine and Debbie as well as Lin with young Zoe Davis. The mixed doubles has some new and interesting pairings with holders Kevin Read and Emma Dadswell facing a tough first round match against Peter Mynard and Dawn Baldry which will probably decide who makes it to the final from the top half of the draw although their are still some strong pairings to get past, Duncan Taylor and Lin Attridge are the second seeds but I would not be surprised if Stuart Gibbs and Maxine Abbott beat them to reach the final. The top seeds in the mens doubles are Kevin Read and Duncan Taylor, who look a strong pair that should make it to the final although you cannot rule out the Marko Jovic, Mark Stones pairing from that half from the other half I like the look of the George Reeves/ Ben Warner pair who may have too much fire power for second seeds Stuart Gibbs and John Monk but Charles Sweeney and Lee Prentice always seem to play well in this event and could upset the form book here. The veterans doubles is another difficult event to pick a winner from, top seeds are George Reeves and Dave Bowles with Mark Stones and Marko Jovic seeded to meet them in the final but there are a few other pairs in with a good chance, including John Monk and Lee Prentice, Dave Bassett and John Poysden, john Cleasby and Keith Adams and finally Babul McLeod and Richard Brown. The veterans singles holder Keith Adams could face quite a task to hold on to his title with George Reeves, Mark Stone and Dave Bowles in his half of the draw while in the bottom half second seed John Monk will have to get past Marko Jovic and Stuart Gibbs so as I am meant to be predicting I will go for a Stones/ Jovic final. Another new event this year is the over 60’s singles which should probably be dominated by the top two seeds, Dave Bowles and Hamish Innes with their main challenge likely to come from Steve Whiteley and John Cleasby, but I will go with the seeding and expect to see the quiet and unassuming Dave Bowles triumph. That will then bring us to the finals night which will be held at Champions Manor Hall, South Woodham Ferrers, on Thursday 27th March starting at 7.30pm with plenty of room for spectators so come along and watch the top players in action.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 20:15:14 +0000
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