Men’s title passes to Waikato player

Waikato’s Mark Page is the Southland open men’s table tennis champion for 2015 after defeating Cantabrian Daniel Astle.

Page took seven sets to head off former New Zealand junior representative Astle, who was returning to the sport after a break. The Waikato player finally got home 11-7 in the final set.

Page beat Southland’s Michael Zhang in a semifinal by four sets to two after Zhang knocked out top seed and defending champion Jonathan Wang, of Canterbury, in a quarterfinal. Astle eliminated second seed Ben Duffy, of Otago, in the other semifinal.

In the women’s open final Jill Liu, of Otago, beat defending champion Debbie Garrett, of Southland, by four sets to two.

Liu earlier beat Southland’s Shelley Neal in an intense semifinal that went to seven sets, Neal holding matchpoint before Liu fought back to take the final set 12-10. In the other open events Astle teamed with Phil Brocks to take the men’s doubles, beating Duffy and Zhang in the final, while Garrett combined with former Southlander Jessica MacAskill to win the women’s doubles.

Wang and another

former Southlander, Gemma Buzzard, combined to win the mixed doubles from Zhang and Neal.

Liu also won the under-21 women’s singles, while Neal won the over-30 singles from Garrett, the pair combining to take the over-30 women’s doubles over Wanita Astle and Patricia Swale, while Daniel Astle took the over-30 men’s singles.

Meanwhile, Wang won the under-30 men’s singles and MacAskill the under-30 women’s title. Cantabrian Grant Wilson won the over-50 men’s singles.

Zhang took the under-21 and under-18 singles titles, and the under-18 mixed doubles, while Laura Geraghty won five out of six events taking two under-15 and three under-18 titles while just losing the under-15 girls’ singles title to fellow Southlander Holly Wu after a five-set battle.

Geraghty beat Wu in five sets in the under-18 singles final.

National squad member Alex Wilson, of Canterbury, won the under-15 boys’ singles after being runner-up to Zhang in the under-18 grade. Finn Holden and Maia Cavanagh, of Southland, won the boys and girls under-13 titles respectively, Holden taking three titles in total while Hayden Wu and Renei Henderson were the under-11 champions.