TABLE TENNIS - Cambridge and District League

Sunday 6 February 2011

CUTTC gave an impressive display of dominance at the annual table tennis
'town VS gown' tournament -- the Cambridge and District League
Championships. Shaun Hall (Churchill) won the Men's singles and doubles
titles for the third year in a row and teamed up with Selwyn's Gengshi
Chen to take the mixed doubles title.

In the men's singles, number two seed, Hamish Yeung (Catz), had no
problems and progressed to the quarter final stage without difficulty.
Akira Murakami was on excellent form against Kevin Gray but failed to
progress, as did Long Pham, Justin Drake and James Crewdson. Ping
Kittipassorn lost to Dave Rowell in the group stage but progressed to
the last sixteen where experienced penhold player, Liwu Wei had the
better of him. Wei faced Yeung in the next round, with Yeung using great
tactical awareness to win 3-1, while Hall faced last year's finalist and
much improved, Martin Freeland, where he won 3-1 after losing the first
game. In the semi-final stage, Hall faced Daniel Fielding, the 2008/09
runner up. The match was nail-bitingly close with Hall coming through
11-7 in the final set thanks to some great counter attacking. Yeung
faced unconventional player Kevin Gray where he struggled to select the
correct balls to attack and lost 3-0. Hall had problems with his arm
having taken all three titles in the Bedford Championships the day
before, but used his experience against 'funny bat' players to
frequently send Gray the wrong way, winning in straight sets, 11-3,
11-6, 11-3.

The Women's singles consisted of two groups of three; with Chen coming
second after Caroline Wright withdrew due to injury. Nga Nguyen
(Trinity) also came second in the group, and in the semi-finals, Nguyen
had an excellent win against Tracey Sambrook while Chen lost in a 3-1
battle with powerful player, Helen Arnold. Nguyen faced a rematch with
Arnold in the final and also struggled with her fierce forehand attack
and lost 3-1. In the doubles event, Chen and Nguyen had no problems
against Janet Nicholls and Caroline Wright but found it hard to attack
against experienced pairing and county numbers one and two, Arnold and
Sambrook, and lost 3-0.

The men's doubles pairings were disrupted after a series of university
players dropped out, so Hall was paired with local player Shaun Murray
and Yeung was in a last minute pairing with Long Pham (Trinity). Justin
Drake and Ping Kittapassorn had a tough group and lost out, but Yeung
and Pham had a good win against Pieters Zvitins and Terry Lane, leading
them to a first round match against Hall and Murray. The result was a
3-0 win by Hall and Murray despite some excellent off the table counter
attacking from Yeung. Hall and Murray won the next two rounds with ease,
using the tricky combination of defence by Murray followed by
counter-attacking from Hall.

In the mixed doubles event, there were two groups of three, with
university pairings, Chen and Hall, and Nguyen and Yeung in separate
groups. Chen and Hall had no problems against Kevin Gray and Janet
Nicholls and defeated the well balanced team, Jan Hryca and Helen
Arnold, 3-0. Nguyen and Yeung defeated Tracey Sambrook and Terry Lane
3-0 but lost to Caroline Wright and Pieters Zvitins 3-1, coming second
on a games count back. The University clash in the semi-final saw Nguyen
and Yeung take the first game 13-11, then Hall and Chen fought back to
win the second by a similar margin. Hall and Chen then combined
excellent tactics with powerful service return to take the next two
games with relative ease. In the final, Chen and Hall faced Hryca and
Arnold having defeated them 3-0 earlier in the group. Arnold had the
better of Hall's serves, passing the spin back to Chen, and solid play
from Hryca led to trouble for the university pair, leading to the first
game being lost and a significant deficit in the second game. They
regained composure and changed service to take the second game and took
the next two using the same tactics.

The evening ended, in true CUTTC style, with a trip to an Indian
restaurant, where moral was brought up in preparation for the Varsity
match against Oxford on 5th March.