Natland hosts Table Tennis finals

The finals of the 2016 closed table tennis tournament for the Kendal and District League were played on Tuesday March 22nd at Natland Village Hall. This followed the preliminary rounds played at Dallam on Sunday March 20th.
        The two most exciting finals were played just after the interval. In the open doubles final were two scratch pairings – Steve Dixon from IBIS played with Alan Turner from Dalton and they lost deuce in the fifth to Roger Pimblett from Natland playing with Trevor Nicholson of IBIS. Roger and Trevor recovered from 10-6 down in the final game. The final score was 11-9, 8-11, 11-8, 3-11, 15-13.
         In the division 2 singles Craig James (Natland) recovered from 2 sets down against Bernard Pickthall (Natland) to win 8-11, 7-11, 11-7, 11-6, 14-12.
       The other events saw some outstanding table tennis without such close games. The Division 1 singles was won by Steve Dixon (IBIS) who beat his teammate Trevor Nicholson 11-5, 11-7, 11-7.

Andrew Hudson, Bob Gale and Sarah Tyson

Steve has a tremendous record in this event dating back to 1993. The Ladies singles saw a reversal of last year’s result Fran Currie (Burton) beating Louise Thompson (Natland)in the crucial round robin match. Fran also won the mixed doubles playing with clubmate Peter Baxendale. They beat Andrew Hudson and Sarah Tyson (Natland) 7-11, 11-3, 11-5, 11-8. Mike Taylor of Crook was in 2 finals. In the handicap event he beat Trevor Nicholson 11-5, 11-7, 11-8. In the veterans he lost to Steve Dixon 14-12, 11-4, 11-3.
        The division 3 singles belied its lowly status with some superb table tennis – young Archie Catnach (Natland) beating Simon Gregory (Burton) 11-8, 11-5, 7-11, 11-7. Archie also caused a big upset in the round robin of the junior singles beating division 1 player  Aidan Branch. His teammate Daniel Holder also caused an upset beating Ben O’Flynn in the preliminaries. Despite this in the final Ben O’Flynn (Dalton) beat Aidan Branch (Burton)11-5,11-8, 12-10. They joined together in the junior doubles to beat Catnach and Whitehead in the final.
         The finals were played in excellent conditions at Natland village hall. Trophies were presented by the President Bob Gale who was present throughout.                         Bob Bagot.
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