Another great event served up by Halton
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FOLLOWING Halton Table Tennis Club becoming a Table Tennis England Talent Development Centre the second in a series of tournaments has been held sponsored by Runcorn Rotary Club.
There was a good entry with contingents from North East, Yorkshire and North Wales travelling to the Select Security Stadium in Widnes for the event.
As an experiment, U21 contests were included for the first time which proved popular. The referee was Karen Tongeand the finals were umpired by Jordan Abbott, Jordan McGarry and George McDonnell, county umpires from Hal- ton Table Tennis Club.
This second event was a success for eight members of the Halton Talent Squad with Thomas Naylor and Niamh Scarborough just losing out in the U13 boys and girls consolation events, Ruby Bennett was runner-up in the U15 girls’ consolation, James Courtney won the U18 boys’ consolation while Robyn Cosgrove won the U21 girls’ main event and was runner-up in the junior girls’ event to Lancashire player Alice Dillon.
Anais O’Connor won the junior girls’ consolation and was runner-up in the U15 girls’ to Alice Dillon.
The U13 boys’ event went with the seeding with Rhys Davies from Formby Table Tennis Club beating Adam Szabo Yorkshire. ●
In the final of the cadet U15 boys’ competition, Rhys lost out to Cleveland’s Kieran Wardell.
Harry Watson of Halton narrowly lost in the semi-final cadet U15 boys to the eventually winner and number one seed Kieran Wardell 5,-3,4,-6,4.
In the U18 boys’, Harry lost to Joshua Harland, again the number one seed.
However, Joshua lost in the all-Cleveland final to second seed Samuel Kwan. This gave Samuel a double has he started the day winning the U21 boys’ final against Lancashire’s Zac Cantor.
Jordan McGarry from Halton lost in the semi-finals of the U21s to Zac Cantor 7,2,7. Both Jordan and Zac are members of Halton Senior British League teams.
Elsewhere in the successful competi- ● tion, Yameen Al-Dahiri from Formby Table Tennis Club defeated Halton’s George McDonnell in the U21 consolation final.
The awards were presented by Ros Gregory who is president-elect of Runcorn Rotary Club.
Derek Pearson, Eddie Gregory and Ken Tonge from Rotary assisted in the running of the event.
Meanwhile on Saturday, January 14, Halton Premier Senior British League team are home to Ormesby Table Tennis Club from the North East. ● The next tournament event is Halton Two Star on Sunday, February 26. Entry forms for this event can be found on the Table Tennis England website under ‘competitions’.