McMullan a double winner in city table tennis tournament
Rod McMullan was a double winner in the Portsmouth closed table tennis tournament held at Fareham Academy.
He claimed the Veteran Singles and Open Doubles titles, as well as finishing runner-up in the Open Singles to Dave Woodacre.
In the Veterans Singles competition for players aged 40 and ovver, McMullan (Generation 2) defeated Paul May in five sets.
Notable results included Geraldine Morle beating Roy Munday over four sets in the preliminaries and Gareth Scadden overcoming Steve Long in a quarter final five setter.
Jacob Pancott impressed in the Peter Goldring Singles, for players who compete in Division 2 of the Portsmouth League and below.
He defeated No. 2 seed Morle followed by a five-set win over No. 3 seed David Haigh in five sets in a crowdpleasing semi-final.
Graeme Smith (Generation 2), however, had too much for Pancott in the final, winning in three sets.
In the Open Singles tournament, there was an outstanding performance by Gareth Scadden, producing a Group 3 upset as he beat Mike Cooksley in five sets.
Other group stage five set highlights were Cooksley beating Chris Langdale, Callum Shipp beating
Billy Blades and Roger Winkworth beating David Haigh.
The semi-finals featured three groups of three players, resulting in a final three group of Shipp, Woodacre and McMullan.
Woodacre (Soberton) was the eventual victor, winning both of his final group matches, with McMullan second.
In the Open Consolation, Paul Fitzgerald knocked out No. 1 seed Mike Cooksley in four sets.
Fitzgerald went on to reach the final, losing in four sets to Joe Watkins (Emsworth), who displayed some incredible back hand shots.
Fiztgerald occasionally used the handle of his bat to serve, which was something new to me.
There were several close matches in the Open Doubles, in particular two quarter finals – Paul May/Roger Winkworth beating Steve Long/Joe Watkins 14-12, 12-10,
13-11 and Dave
Woodacre/Callum
Shipp beating Kane Beale/Billy Blades 11-9, 118, 12-10.
McMullan/ Krystian Fijalkowski (Generation 2) triumphed over
Woodacre/Shipp 11-9, 13-11, 13-11 in a final closer than the 3-0 scoreline suggests.
There were many long and close staminatesting matches in the Barry
Boorah Handicap Singles competition.
Ben Woods-Ives beat Will Chapman in a close game and Morle (Knowle) beat Fijalkowski, David Haigh and Dylan Linsell, finally edging Fitzgerald 24-22 in the third set of the final match.