Barella takes place at head of the table
GRAEME Barella retained the Alan Morpeth Memorial Cup when he beat Chun Yin Yu in the final of the open singles at the Northumberland Closed Tournament.
After winning his group, he accounted for John Cook, Jamie Dent and Peter Smallcombe before winning in four ends against Chun, who had put out No 2 seed Andrew Wilkinson in the semis.
The women’s singles round-robin event for the Philomena Clark Memorial Cup was won by Lynne Herrington for a third year running, with Lynsey Storey the runner-up.
Wilkinson made it three veterans singles crowns in a row with victory over Steve Penman in the final after Men’s and women’s open singles winners Graeme Barella and Lynne Herrington with Northumbria Table Tennis League chairman Gareth Pearson putting out Martin Schapira in the last four.
Penman beat No 2 seed Eddie Smith to make the decider.
Penman was also another player to retain a title when he beat Jamie Dent in the decider of the band one singles.
The band two winner was Ethan Under-13 title winner Oliver Ho (above) is congratulated by Northumbria Table Tennis League president Aubrey Drapkin and (below) under-12 champion Toby Dancer Brown. Sree Kanakla – last year’s band four winner – triumphed in band three this time round, while Sam Nair took band four and Linda Pinkham prevailed in band five.
The doubles was again a fun event with a top player being drawn to play with a lower-ranked one – and the pairing of James Bradbury and Israel Shodeinde were the eventual winners.
■ IN the Junior Closed Tournament, Adam Webster made history by becoming the first youngster to win the Norman Moore Memorial Cup four years running when he beat Ethan Brown in the singles final.
Brown, however, had the consolation of claiming the cadet singles – beating Archie Stokes in the decider.
Oliver Ho was crowned under-13 singles champion for the second year running, overcoming Leo Conn in the final.
The victor of the under-12 roundrobin event was Toby Dancer with Jessica Yang the runner-up.