Table glory kept firmly in the family
UNIVERSITY SPORT
SISTER act Angharad and Megan Phillips added a BUCS Championship title to their glittering table tennis resumes as the deadly Durham duo beat their University of Nottingham counterparts 3-0.
The Welsh twins, who have both represented their country twice at Commonwealth Games, won their singles matches 3-2 and claimed their doubles game in straight sets to take an impressive victory.
Competing at BUCS Big Wednesday at Nottingham’s David Ross Sports Centre, the 23-year-olds triumphed after missed opportunities in three previous years.
Megan Phillips said: “It is special to win a national title - to do it with my sister is even more significant for me.
“We have trained together since we were very young so it is a great achievement as a pair.
“I reached the semi-final in my first two years at the event and lost in the final last year, so it is terrific to do it in my last year at Durham.”
The pair won three straight points to complete a whitewash in their doubles contest, although the second set was a drawn-out affair.
They started training together when their father Tegid, a former footballer with Wales Under-19s, gave them a table for a Christmas present and they played at the same club for most of their youth.
Megan Phillips added: “We started out as singles players really but then graduallywe just became good at doubles together.
“Nottingham are always a strong team and our games were not as easy as they might sound.
“They were both really tense matches which could have gone either way.
“The doubles was a close game despite the 3-0 score.
“The scorelines suggest it was convincing but they do not really reflect the real nature of the game.”
BUCS Big Wednesday, powered by Yoti, is the culmination of the university team sport league programme with 52 finals across 14 sports played on one day.
This weekly fixture programme sees 100,000 students compete every Wednesday afternoon across 800 leagues – making it the biggest student sporting programme in Europe.