Colin Dalgleish, North of Scotland Open 2023-24 Men's Singles winner
Download North Open 2023-24 Complete Results
Article by Donald Pirie
The 2024 North of Scotland Table Tennis Open took place at Aberdeen Sports Village on Saturday 6 January 2024.
Once again the Scottish Table Tennis community came out in force, with a total of 105 entrants across all available events, and players from all across the country, Shetland to Ayrshire, were taking part and ensured a high standard of play and a fantastic atmosphere across the day!
The main events, the Men's Open and the Ladies Open, both attracted a large entry, and the level of Table Tennis across both was of a very high quality.
In the Men's event, after 15 groups and rounds of 16 and 8, it was down to the semi-final stage. Last year's champion Danny Bajwa (Dumfries) faced off against former Aberdeen player, now at Strathclyde University, Dylan Curry, with the second match seeing Commonwealth Games player Colin Dalgleish against rising star Gavin Yuan, both Edinburgh based players. With all four players having attacking styles, and blending both power and spin, both matches made for exciting and spectacular play, and the watching supporters were treated to high level Table Tennis.
After 5 close ends between Dylan & Danny, it was Dylan who made it through on this occasion to meet Colin, who had a more comfortable 3-end semi-final win. The former training partners looked set to serve up a classic match, and did not disappoint. Colin took the first set and looked comfortable, however the next two sets both went to deuce, with Colin now taking a 2-1 lead. This boosted Colin's confidence who went onto take the fourth set in style and secure the North of Scotland Open title for 2024.
The Ladies event was wide open this year with current Champion Lucy Elliot still recovering from injury, a number of players had aspirations of lifting the title. After gruelling group stages, the semi-finals were once again dominated by West of Scotland players. Three players from Drumchapel, Joy Daniels, Alisa Khalid, and Amelia Smolarek, being joined by Aberdeen based Polish national Ilona Obst-Wojcicka. After a tight 4-set match with Joy, it was Ilona who made it through to the final to be joined by Alisa, her second final in as many years, who had an even tighter 5-set thriller with Drumchapel clubmate Amelia.
In the final Ilona raced into a 2-set lead and Alisa looked all but out. However, Alisa opened up her attacking game in the third set, playing with much more freedom, and went onto tie the match at 2-2. The final set was a tight affair, with both players looking to open up with their forehand attacks and displaying some tremendous attacking table tennis. It was Ilona who managed to take the final set 11-9, and lift the Ladies title for 2024, and an excellent home win.
As ever, the age group categories were highly competitive and of as equally high quality as the main events. Malo Le Gall, the French national based at Drumchapel took an excellent win in the 19-39 category, and Robert Toth made sure Dundee was in the winners’ enclosure with an excellent victory in the 40+ category This year it was Willie Mabon of North Merchiston defeating reigning champion Derek Lundie in the 60+ age category.
Both the U19 Boys and Girls event had strong entries, and there was enough high quality table tennis on offer to rival both the main events.
In the Boys event it was Edinburgh's Gavin Yuan, fresh from his Men's semi-final appearance, up against current Scottish No.1 ranked Jamie Johnston from North Ayrshire. Jamie put up a great display to try and thwart Gavin, but despite taking the third end to 15-13, it was Gavin who proved too strong on this occasion to lift the Boys U19 title.
In the Girls event, Amelia Smolarek (Drumchapel) and Maja Wojcicka (Aberdeen) remained unbeaten all the way through to the final match. Maja was in excellent and consistent form, and took full advantage of her home venue advantage to lift the Girls U19 title with a 3-0 final win.
Joe Mulhern, once again from Drumchapel, defended his U15 Boys titles, lifting that for the second year in a row. It was Rory Thomson (Edinburgh) who faced off against Joe this year, and pushed the defending champion all the way.
Still eligible at U15 level, Maja Wojcicka doubled up to take her second title of the day, managing to overcome Aberdeen clubmate Kiishi Adekola, last year's U13 winner, in a 4-set final.
At U13 level, it was an all-Aberdeen affair with players taking full advantage of their home event. Victor Chen overcame clubmate Dean Robertson in an all Aberdeen final in the boys event, an excellent win for Victor after being out of table tennis for almost a year.
Nikki Mo went one better this year, taking the Girls U13 title for Aberdeen. Alexandra Hart (Stirling) pushed Nikki all the way in the final but went down 0-3 in the end to Nikki.
A huge thank you and well done to all the players who took part in the event this year, travelling from across the country to support the North Open in Aberdeen on the first week in January is very much appreciated, and once again has made the event an overwhelming success. We look forward to just as much success and seeing everyone again next year.
Finally, ADTTA would sincerely like to thank Tees Sport, and in particular Phil McCallum, for their continued support of the North Open by providing the tournament balls - this is very much appreciated.
North of Scotland Open results on Ratings Central
Videos published on YouTube
Men's Final,Colin Dalgleish vs. Dylan Curry: https://youtu.be/V28-mwQOlOc
Ladies Final, Ilona Obst-Wojcicka vs. Alisa Khalid: https://youtu.be/8izWtf_M51s
19-u40s Final, Malo Le Gall vs. Rhoari Rowan: https://youtu.be/cp2i0c5ssLo
Junior Boys Final, Gavin Yuan vs. Jamie Johnson: https://youtu.be/Am8d5XrsqKk
