Ilford TTL - News Articles

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

17 Apr 2008
The Ilford Table Tennis league season finale was the match between Frenford 1st & 2nd teams where the 1st team led the 2nd team at the top of Division 1 by just 2 points at the start of the match. The 1st team eventually ran out winners by 8 points to 2, thus retaining the league title won last season. The star of the evening was Essex Junior Emran Hussain who won all 3 of his games against the much more experienced and older opposition of Ray Lam, Peter Radford (the Ilford Veterans champion) and Zayd Mauthoor. The second team gained their two points when both Ray Lam (18-16 in the fifth) and Peter Radford beat John Tendler. Emran was ably supported by John & Jason Tendler.

Having taken the Ilford League by storm in his debut season, one wonders how good Emran will become in the seasons to come. He will clearly be rising through the England national rankings having achieved success in the national events that he has already entered. He may even have one eye on the Olympic 2012 squad. Watch this space!

10 Apr 2008 (Not published by Ilford Recorder)
The Handicap singles was another fantastic event, it was the best of three games up to 33 points, with each player starting with his allocated handicap. Having come through the group stages, Darek Zurowski, on a handicap of zero had to play in a semi-final group of three players who were on 15 points and 27 points respectively. The group finished with each player having won one match 2-0, so progression to the final was determined by number of points scored, which put Zurowski through.

In the final he met a junior, Alex Donkor, who had also progressed from the semi-final after each player had won one match. Alex was on 23 points, so had to win each game by scoring ten points to Darek’s 33. What a final it was; Alex attacked from the start and Darek had to use all his experience to earn all his points as he won the first game 33-29. Alex took the second game 33-28 and at this point Darek looked exhausted. He had won 352 points in his five matches so far and as he towelled-down prior to the final game, he seemed mentally tired. However, when the final game began, he played like a true champion, winning 33-29.

03 Apr 2008
The Ilford league Open Singles ran more or less to form as number one seed Darek Zurowski beat number three seed Didier Ngoma in a final that was a fantastic advert for table tennis.

The late withdrawal of number two seed Euan Liddle left the way clear for Ngoma to proceed to the final. He had to work hard to beat unseeded Rohit Kumar in the quarter final 9-11, 12-10, 13-11, 11-8 and then beat Gavin West in four sets in the semi final.

Meanwhile, Zurowski had an easy path into the semi-final, where he met Essex Veteran champion Peter Radford. Zurowski won the first two sets 12-10, 11-8 then lost the third 9-11. However, he stepped up a gear in the fourth to win 11-2 and book his place in the final.

The final was an attacking spectacular from the very first point scored. Ngoma used his forehand loop to good effect whereas Zurowski used a counter-attacking forehand smash or a backhand punch stroke to narrowly win the first set 11-9. In the second, Zurowski raced into an 8-4 lead only for Ngoma to recover to 9-9. At this point, Ngoma tried to play a winning shot in response to Zurowski’s serve and reprimanded himself when he lost the point. He lost the following point to lose the set 9-11.

The tactics now changed as Zurowski had a 2-set lead and Ngoma was fighting to stay in the match and therefore took a few risks to win points. It wasn’t to be and Zurowski won the third set 11-6 to become Ilford Champion.

27 Mar 2008
The Ilford league held five events of its tournament this week. The Veterans Singles went to form with number one seed Peter Radford defeating John Tendler in the final 11-5, 9-11, 11-9, 11-3. Earlier, number 3 seed, Phil Walker succumbed 3-0 to Gareth Williams and unseeded Russell Stone defeated number 4 seed Steve Codrington 11-9 in the fifth game.

In the Division 2&3 singles, the unseeded Stone beat number one seed Keith Turner in the semi-final to book his place in the final where he met number 3 seed Paul Pells, who was victorious 11-5, 1-11, 11-4, 12-10.

In the division 3 singles, there were more shocks. Number two seed Andy Patmore lost to Len Tolvin, who was then beaten by number 3 seed Andy Home. Meanwhile, number one seed Stan Kenner lost in the semi-final to number 4 seed David Evans, who beat Andy Home 11-9, 7-11, 11-9, 11-9 in the final.

The Open doubles provided victory for defending champions Euan Liddle and Matt Spero who defeated Rohit Kumar and Mostafa Heikal in the final 11-8, 11-8, 9-11, 11-7.

Finally, there was some tangible reward for Russell Stone as he combined with Paul Pells in the Veterans doubles to defeat Ray Brown and Steve Codrington 11-9, 11-9, 5-11, 12-10.

Next week, a report on the main event, the Open Singles.

13 Mar 2008

The Ilford League cup finals produced two contrasting results this week.

In the Division 2 final, favourites Eastlea 2 gained their expected win over Woodford Wells 2 with a score of 6-3.

In the Division 3 final, Rhodium, currently third in the league table, were up against 6^th placed Heathcote 4, in a best-of-nine matches comprising 6 singles and 3 doubles. Unexpectedly, Heathcote roared into a 4-0 lead, winning the initial doubles and the first three singles. Rhodium’s top player, Susie Hughes was surprisingly beaten in the opening singles by Heathcote’s Hon Ming Lau. After winning the first game 11-5, Hughes lost the next three.

Heathcote only needed to win one more match to win the final but Rhodium had other ideas. Firstly, they won the next doubles then Hughes redeemed herself by convincingly beating Van Vu in three straight games.

In the next match, in-form Hon Ming Lau took-on Rhodium’s Joan Donovan, beating her 11-9 in the first game. Joan had lost a lot of points by placing her returns beyond the end of the table. However, in the second game she recovered to win 11-4, then was victorious in the next two games to beat Lau three games to one. This meant that the overall score was now 4-3.

The eighth match saw Rhodium’s Michael Marshom against Patrick Scarlett. Marshom sneaked the first game 11-9 then watched in awe as Scarlett’s forehand loop at last found some accuracy. He used this shot to good effect in each of the next three games to win 3 games to one and so give Heathcote victory with a 5-3 score.

07 Feb 2008

Semi-finals of various cups took place this week in the Ilford league. Unusually, two teams (Rhodium and Redbridge Social) were drawn to meet each other in two different cups.

On Monday, they met at Rhodium in the Handicap cup, where the visitors were given a start of 55 points over the higher-ranked hosts. Each of the nine matches comprises four games, then all the points are accumulated and the handicap added to determine the winner.

In the opening doubles, Social gained a six-points lead, then the two top players met. Rhodium’s Susie Hughes lost in all four games to Tunde Ajibawo. It didn’t get any better for Rhodium as the gap in points increased to 76 by the time that Hughes met Social’s Ben Adebayo. She lost the first game 2-11, won the next two then lost the fourth 7-11. In the end, it was an easy win for Social 600-504.

On Thursday, the two met again at Social in the division 3 cup. This time there was no handicap, each match being the best of five games. The opening doubles was won by Rhodium, who came from 2 games down to win 11-6 in the fifth.

Next, Social’s Tunde Ajibawo met Susie Hughes. This time, Hughes defeated her opponent in straight games to avenge her defeat earlier in the week. By the time that Ben Adebayo met Rhodium’s Paul Singleton, Rhodium were leading 3-0 in matches. Ben redressed the balance by winning 11-4, 11-2, 11-3.

When Ben met Susie in match 7, he needed to win to save the tie as Rhodium led 4-2. Unfortunately for him, Susie was in inspired form and won 13-11, 11-8, 11-9 to put Rhodium into the final.

24 Jan 2008

In the Ilford league division 2, runaway leaders Woodford Wells suffered their first defeat of the season when they lost 9-1 to Eastlea 2, who included top Women’s veteran Shu Huang in their team.

Eastlea began with two easy victories by three games to love before Wells’ Phil Walker (on 100% before this match) beat Rohit Kumar 6-11, 12-10, 11-6,11-6. This turned out to be Wells only victory as they crumbled to a very strong Eastlea team, who were only severely challenged in the last two encounters of the evening.

In the final singles, Wells’ Paul Pells was unlucky not to beat Shola Omowanile, losing 14-12 in the fifth game. Pells showed great character, having lost the first game (11-0) without scoring a point. He recovered to win the second and third games 11-7, 11-9 before Omowanile recovered to win the final two games 11-8, 14-12.

The final match of the evening was the doubles, where Wells’ Pells and Walker lost to Omowanile and Kumar 2-11, 11-5, 8-11, 11-6, 11-4.

20 Dec 2007

In the Ilford league Handicap cup, two third division teams produced an exciting match and a close result. The hosts, Eastlea 5, began with a 70 points start over Grove Castle and, after the first doubles, had extended that advantage to 78 points.

Gradually, the visitors began to reduce the lead and after eight encounters and with only the final doubles remaining, Grove Castle led by three points and looked favourites.

However, the first two games of the final doubles saw the Eastlea pair of Alex Donkor and Arun Sathasivam win 11-6, 11-7 to take back the lead by six points. Their opponents, Andy Home and Wing Lai then used all their experience to win the third game 11-6, putting them just one point behind, meaning that they needed to win the final game 11-9 to win by one point.

In a tense final game, Home and Lai won 11-7 to give Grove Castle victory by a mere three points.