Cowburn Is The Master

On a night of some fabulous table tennis Peter Cowburn was crowned Worksop Masters Champion 2019. Six of the top players in the Worksop League battled it out for not only the honour of lifting the trophy but also a £100 prize money for the winner and £50 for the runner-up.
The six players were split into two groups of three players with the winner of each group going through to the final and with two former winners of the Masters, a former winner of the Open Singles and the current Open Singles champion playing in the event it was going to be a close-run thing.
John Davies the current Open Singles Champion and Orestas Riauba kicked things off in Group A with Riauba controlling things from the start and comfortably won the opening match 3-0. Riauba’ s next match against Sarah Short was a much closer affair which went to a deciding game which Riauba just managed to win 11-8 to not only win the group but to also qualify for the final.
The last Group A match would not affect the outcome of the group but nonetheless both players gave it their all but it was Short that had the edge on Davies and won the match 3-0 to end a disappointing night for Davies.
Group B’s first match featured Ernest Mpundu the defending Masters Champion who was up against Peter Cowburn and from the first few points Cowburn looked bang in form and really in the mood for the battle ahead. Cowburn took the first game 11-9 but Mpundu levelled things by taking the second game 11-8 but Cowburn got his nose in front yet again by winning a close third game 13-11. In the fourth game Cowburn took an early lead which he managed to maintain until the end winning it 11-6 to chalk up the first win in the group.
As in Group A, if Cowburn could win the second match in the group he would cement his place in the final but it wouldn’t be easy as he was up against a former Masters winner in Richard Element and so it proved to be as Element took the opening game 11-7 to put Cowburn on the back foot. Cowburn hit back to take the next game 11-9 and went ahead for the first time in the contest by winning the third game 13-11 before closing the match out and qualifying for the final by again winning a close game 11-9.
The last game in Group B was meaningless in regards to who went through to the final but Element and Mpundu decided to treat the crowd to some exhibition table tennis with Mpundu playing some great attacking table tennis whilst Element retreated from the table to show off his fabulous defensive game. All in all it was a great match for the spectators and the on watching sponsors of the event from DTH Engineering but in the end it was Mpundu’ s attacking prowess that proved to be decisive as won 11-9, 11-9, 11-9.
Before the competition began, a final between Peter Cowburn and Orestas Riauba would not have been in most pundits predictions but both players had ben the best two players on the night and both fully deserved to be in the final having played some great table tennis in the group stages.
Cowburn took the first game 11-7 with some excellent attacking play and followed that up with a narrow win in the second taking it 13-11. A fightback looked on the cards as Riauba took an early lead in the third game but Cowburn wasn’t going to be denied and he clawed his way back into the game with an array of fabulous shots and took the third game 12-10 and with it the £100 winners prize money and more importantly the accolade of being the Worksop Masters Champion for 2019.