New second team for Cippenham acquit themselves well in opening games

The new Senior British League table tennis season commenced at the weekend with, this year, two teams representing the Cippenham club.

In addition to the traditional first team, comprising the same four players as last season plus Shae Thakker (right), a new second team has been entered.

This second team is made up entirely of junior players and will help the club’s younger players bridge the gap between junior and senior table tennis.

Both teams acquitted themselves well during the first weekend with the first team winning three of its four matches while the second team won twice.

The first team, playing in National

Division B-4, started with a 6-3 victory over Fusion 4 for whom their number one player, Tanyi Yu, contributed both his singles sets and the doubles. For Cippenham, Martin Gray and Shae Thakker, playing at three and four respectively in the team, won twice while Robert Hansell, elevated to number one this season after his incredible run of success last season, and Martin Adams won one each.

Thakker dropped his first game to Francesco Bonato before winning 3-1 while all the other six sets that came Cippenham’s way were 3-0. Martin Gray was awarded player of the match.

WCBTT were Cippenham’s opponents on Saturday afternoon. Adams lost the opening set of the match to Joe Ratajczak but from then on Cippenham went on a romp, eventually winning 8-1. Only Tom Lewis, who took Gray to deuce in the deciding game, offered much resistance.

For the matches on Sunday, Martin Gray, who had won all four matches on Saturday, was replaced by Steve Munson.

The first four encounters in the opening match against Westfield were shared, Hansell and Thakker easily accounting for Nicole Bird and Matthew Horrocks respectively, but losses for Adams, against Roumen Stefanov, and Munson, against Kevin Bird, left the score at 2-2.

However, Cippenham upped their game and won the remaining five sets with the loss of only two games to take the points with a 7-2 victory.

Robert Hansell, who won his two matches comfortably, was named player of the match as he had been also on Saturday afternoon.

Sitting top of the table after three matches, confidence was high but that was to come tumbling down against Somerset Sabres in the final match of the weekend.

Only Shae Thakker, with a 30 win over Marcus Holba, scored for Cippenham in an 8-1 defeat.

Thakker was Cippenham’s most successful player during the weekend, winning seven of his eight individual matches, but that defeat dropped Cippenham down to third place in the table and elevated Somerset up to second.