On a day when table tennis players were spoiled for choice with the WTT Star Contender London, The London Academy Junior 4* and the Worthing 2* to choose from, the Worthing 2* still got underway with a full reckoning for players along the south coast.
First up were the U11s and in Group 1 we saw the first shock of the day as unranked Chris Charley (Sy) defeated top seed Raphael Church (K).
Second seed Yuxuan Wu (Wo) made easy work of winning his group without dropping a set to take his place in the knockout.
In the semi-final, Chris Harvey defeated Keelyside (Sx) 3-0, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounds with two deuce sets, while the other semi-final saw the top two seeds battle it out, Raphael and Wu, in a very impressive match that ended 13-11 in the fourth for Raphael.
This set up a repeat of the group stage with Chris versus Raphael and this time Raphael came out on top, winning 3-1 and taking home the title.
The plate event saw another great final with Oscar Liu beating Harry Whitmore three games to one.
In the Cadet Boys, Naivedya Agarwal (Mi) took full advantage of the draw to reach the final after beating Worthing’s Vincent Ridley in the semi-finals. His opponent in the final was second seed Ollie Hensell (Ha), who had defeated fourth seed Elliot Brackbury (E) in his semi-final. In the final, Ollie emerged victorious in three consecutive matches
The plate event was an all-Kent affair, with Aayush Patil beating Harry Speller 3-0.
The Under-13s decided to ignore the placings and plan their own route through the draw. Second seed Kayden Gallagher (Sy) was on the wrong side of the five-setter with Raphael Church, putting him in the top half of the draw, while third seed Freddie Unwin was unlucky to be in the plate event.
In the semi-finals, top seed William Grant (Mi) faced second seed Kayden Gallagher, with Grant taking the spoils. The bottom half saw a real Hollywood match, with Raphael Church just missing a second final to Aayush Patil 12-10 in the fifth.
In the final, Will Grant justified his top position with a win, but he needed all five sets to claim the title.
The plate event was won by Ellenbrough’s Elias Amin (Mi), who defeated double finalist Chris Charley, while Worthing’s Max Lee (Sx) and Ebatt’s Freddie Unwin (K) were in bronze positions.
Freddie Unwin won the hearts and minds of the organizers as well as a special prize with a moment of pure sportsmanship. When, in a tight game, a shot looped and bounced and started to come back over the net, when Freddie lunged to try to hit it, no one was really sure what had happened after the ball had bounced: had Freddie hit it or not? Without a moment’s hesitation, Freddie said that he had not hit and that this was his opponent’s point.
Last but not least, the juniors came to the table with a somewhat international touch, as Jersey juniors Theo De Poerck and Callum Allaway rode a fantastic final.
Theo reached the final by beating Worthing’s James Fryer (Sx) in the quarter-finals and William Eversham (E), who had defeated second seed James Roberts (Do) in the semi-finals.
Callum defeated Kostiantyn Motovillin (Sy) in his quarter-final before defeating Cadet champion Ollie Hensell (Ha) in the semi-final.
In the final, Theo took his second Worthing Junior title in a row, having also won in August, coincidentally beating a teammate from Jersey that time. This time he defeated Callum in a thrilling five-set match.
On the junior plate, Naivedya Agarwal reached his second final, this time taking the gold by beating Harrison Padley (Sx), who had defeated Worthing’s Matthew Dyche (Sx) in the semi-final, while Luke Higginson (Sy) was the other losing semi-finalist.
Away from the table, the day saw the club’s focus on referee recruitment come into play with five referees in action. James Pettigrew, an experienced referee who has refereed across the country for many years, was joined by newer L1 referees Marc Ghosh, Holly Holder and Juan Da Silva, along with trainee referee Mark Howell, meaning almost all knockout round matches were overseen by referees. Thank you to all the volunteers on this day.
The complete results can be found in the results booklet here.
Next on the Worthing TTC calendar is the Christmas Training Camp on December 27 and a 1* Banded Tournament on December 28, hosted at sister club Hollingbury TTC in Brighton. Both events can be entered online at www.worthingttc.com/events – or to enter on 28 December 1* via the Table Tennis England website, the form can be found here.
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