Big guns go head-to-head

Major matches have taken place in all of the Canterbury & District Table Tennis Association League’s divisions between sides who are in contention for honours.

The Premier Division saw CW4 extract a narrow win over CW1.

Ethan Braden earned eight out of his 10 sets, which included a 5-0 success over Peter Roberts and a 3-2 triumph against Ron Rowley. With Bob Edwards adding three sets and two sets in the doubles, CW4 scraped to a 1312 win, which pushed them into the top five. Elsewhere in the Premier Division, all three top sides were victorious.

Hoath B beat CW3 20-5, Hoath A beating Herne Bay 24-1 and CW6 getting the better of CW5 16-9.

The big game in Division 1 was the meeting of unbeaten leaders CW7 against Herne Bay B, a side having lost just one match and featuring Chloe Evans - who had been the only unbeaten player in the division.

Ethan Kay, of CW7, inflicted Evans’ first loss with a 3-1 win and colleague Robin Loft added to Evans’ woes with a 3-1 success.

Evans did narrowly avoid losing to Paul Davies, though, with a 3-2 win but CW7 got the all-important 6-3 victory in the singles to stay top of the standings. Unbeaten Division 2 leaders Herne Bay J met another unbeaten side CW11 in a crucial showdown.

Herne Bay J won the contest in the singles 6-3, with Russell Perry and Ryan Hobbs remaining unbeaten for their hat-tricks and their side retained their perfect record in the singles.

They are now beginning to put distance between them and the other sides in the division.

Division 3 leaders CW15 got the better of the side which have been tracking them in recent weeks.

Herne Bay K had to try hard to get points against the leaders in the game to close the gap. But CW15 got a 7-2 win, with Raif Fontanelli remaining unbeaten and his side stay top - 12 points ahead of Canterbury B.

The big contest in Division 4 saw the two unbeaten outfits, CW17 and Herne Bay O, do battle to determine who would reign supreme at the halfway stage of the season.

It finished in an overwhelming 4-0 triumph for CW17, as both Edward Lambourn and Rick Perkins were unbeaten and both won their games without dropping a set.