Ilford TTL - News Articles 2006/07

The following articles are as submitted to the Ilford Recorder. (Not necessarily as published!)

30 March 2007

Report of the Ilford Closed tournament March 2007

The Ilford Closed tournament comprising seven events was held over a 3-week period in March, culminating with the Mens Singles on 28 March at St Andrew’s Church Hall, The Drive, Ilford.

There were early shocks for the top two seeds, Euan Liddle and Gary Tendler, who were each beaten in the group stages. Gary Tendler lost in 3 sets to Keith Lesser while Liddle lost in 4 sets to John Tendler. As the top two in each group progressed to the quarterfinals, all four qualified with ease.

The shocks continued in the quarterfinals, when surprise packet Ray Brown defeated John Tendler 11-6, 11-5, 11-3 and Lesser beat 4^th seed Gavin West in 3 sets. The other two matches went to five sets. Gary Tendler was leading 6-1 in the fifth set only for Matt Spero to recover to 8-8. However, he may well rue the poor start as Gary Tendler won 11-9. Euan Liddle eventually overcame Peter Radford 11-6 in the fifth set after four very close sets.

The semi-finals couldn’t have been more different from each other. Gary Tendler was always in control as he beat Ray Brown 11-5, 11-8, 11-7 but Keith Lesser came from two sets down to beat Euan Liddle 11-9 in the fifth.

So the final was a repeat of the opening group match. This time we saw a far more-determined Gary Tendler who took a 2-0 lead only for Keith Lesser to pull a set back. It was too little too late as Gary Tendler won 11-8, 14-12, 7-11, 11-6 to take the Ilford title for the first time.

Other results:

Mens Doubles: Euan Liddle & Matthew Spero beat Gareth Williams & Tony Cantale 12-10, 11-6, 11-7

Veterans Singles: Peter Radford beat Martyn Ball 11-7, 9-11, 11-8, 11-8

Veterans Doubles: Ray Brown & Fred Alldritt beat Alan Rosenfeld & David Evans 11-9, 11-5, 4-11, 11-9

Handicap Singles: Tom Griffiths beat Andy Patmore 3 sets to 1

Division 2&3 Singles: Gareth Williams beat Colin Green 11-8, 11-7, 11-6

Division 3 Singles: Andy Patmore beat Luxman Sriranjan 11-5, 11-4, 4-11, 11-8

17 February 2007

In the Ilford League Handicap cup, Mossford 3 from division 2 faced Grove from division 3, who received 150 points start. The first six matches went according to handicap, with Mossford reducing Grove’s lead to 51 points, with three matches remaining.

Match seven started optimistically for Mossford as Karla Bryant won the first of the four games 11-3 against Grove’s Ujitha De Zoysa. A repeat performance in the other three games would have reduced the deficit by another 32 points and put Mossford firmly in the driving seat. However, De Zoysa won the next two games narrowly 11-9 and then had the audacity to beat Bryant 11-3 in the final game.

With the last two matches going to form, match seven became the deciding factor in Grove’s overall win by an aggregate 21 points. If Bryant could’ve won games 2, 3 and 4 by an 11-7 margin, then Mossford would have been celebrating a 3-point win instead of a 21-point loss.

30 November 2006

Lowly Cranbrook Castle took on Third Division leaders Grove in what turned out to be a well contested match.

Grove's Andy Home played Castle's Wing Lai in the first match of the night, and it followed what would become a familiar pattern for the night. Wing lost the first set, but took the next two needing just one more to win, however, he lost two very close sets as the Grove player scraped a five set win. Next Graeme Wilson (Castle) also took a two sets to one lead against Andy Petrou, before losing the fourth. however, he convincing won the deciding set to level the tie. Roy Booth (Grove) then played Alan Finch, in yet another match that went to five sets, the Castle player had match point at 12-11 in the deciding set before the Grove player won the last three points to decide the game. Games four and five were both won convincingly by Wing Lai and Andy Home to leave the match at 3-2 to Grove.

Graeme Wilson then led Roy Booth by two sets to one, but for the third time on the night Grove recovered to win the decisive set. Home and Petrou for Grove won the next two matches comfortably before Lai won the final singles of the night to leave the match at 6-3 to Grove. The doubles predictably went to five and equally predictably was won by Grove to decide the match 7-3, however, Cranbrook Castle were led to rue the four contests they'd lost to five - it could have been a very different story.

28 October 2006

The first round of the Ilford League Handicap Cup produced an unexpected twist that would befit an Agatha Christie play.

Redbridge 2 from division 3 started with an 80 points lead over div 2 opponents Mossford 6. After five of the nine matches had been played, Mossford had clawed back the deficit and led by ten points. In the next match they extended their lead to sixteen points and it was now a case of by how many points they would win; or was it?

After eight matches and with only the last doubles remaining, Mossford led by fourteen points as Andy Patmore and Len Tolvin of Redbridge took on Dave Parker and Brian Steward. The first of the four games resulted in an 11-10 win to the Mossford pair, followed by 11-7, 11-5 wins for Redbridge. This meant that in the final game, Mossford only needed to get seven points to win the match.

Incredibly, Redbridge won 11-2, their nine-point win meaning that they won the tie by four points. In the history of the competition, no team has begun the tie with a lead (80 points), been behind with one match remaining (14 points) yet won the match.