GREYSTONE LLC sponsored Island Senior Table Tennis Championships
RONAN McDONNELL RETAINS HIS ISLAND SINGLES TITLE
The championships were held in the main hall at the NSC on Saturday 16 March 2013.
Twenty players were split into four groups with the winners and runners-up from the round robin matches progressing to the quarter-finals. The defending champion, Ronan McDonnell was the number one seed and he came through unscathed in group one. Jason Quirk beat Julian Briercliffe, Danny Hamill and Malc Lewis to take the group runners-up spot with the others finishing respectively with two, one and no wins.
The group two leader was Paul Corran who lost a round to John Magnall 6/11, 9/11, 11/6, 12/10, 8/11. Hadyn McLarney equalled Corran’s three wins but, having lost their encounter in five sets, he took the runners-up spot. Darren Smethurst was placed ahead of Magnall as he was the victor in their match, and they both beat the third division’s top player Chris Kewley.
Tim Baker was undefeated in group three and Sean Drewry came second after wins over Mike Tamarov, Mason McLarney and Aaron Faragher who finished in that order as Tamarov mastered McLarney who in turn had beaten Faragher in four furious frames.
Ewan Watterson headed the final group with wins over second placed Malcolm Cummings, and the duo from Foxdale, Becky Bayley and Marc Townsend. Bayley beat Townsend 11/2, 11/3, 11/8 to emphatically settle their wooden spoon decider.
McDonnell won the first quarter-final against Hadyn McLarney in straight sets and progressed to the semi-final where he met Sean Drewry who played brilliantly to beat Watterson in four sets in their quarter-final. Malcolm Cummings took five sets to beat Baker and Quick quelled Corran in four close claims.
Nerves got the better of Drewry in his semi with McDonnell who dropped just nine points to reach the final where he met Cummings who closed out Quirk in four sets of tactical play. In the final Cummings started encouragingly and took the first set 11/6. McDonnell then responded with two swift legs of 11/5 and ended the match in cruise control to retain his title 13/11 in four sets of excellent singles play.
MALCOLM LAMBERT
