Eyre Crowned Hard Bat Champion...........Again!

Peter Eyre convincingly defended his Hard Bat title on a night that contained some fabulous table tennis from everyone who entered the competition. 20 players turned up to do battle at Worksop Leisure Centre in a competition that has now become the 'curtain raiser' to the new table tennis season in  Worksop.
The players were seeded accordingly and split into 4 groups with the top two from each group going through to the quarter finals. Peter Eyre topped Group A with 5 wins out of 5 with Stuart Element coming Runner Up despite losing to Eyre after winning all his remaining games. Group B also contained another player that remained unbeaten throughout the group stage in Ian Henderson who beat Malcolm Manuel, Adam Hamilton, Nigel Stent and Mitchell Radford to win the group and qualify for the quarter finals alongside Malcolm Manuel who came Runner-Up.
Group C was a much tighter affair with players beating each other but in the end both Mick Bell and Erlands Skels qualified with Mick Bell eventually finishing top from Skels by virtue of scoring more individual points. Probably the upset of the night occurred in Group C when Neil Fisher from Division Three defeated Mick Bell from Division One with Fisher going for his shots and them all coming off!
Group D was again a tight group with George Makrakis winning it by remaining unbeaten with Rob Vaughan making it through to the quarter finals by virtue of coming runner up.
Peter Eyre didn't hang about in the first quarter final and took no time at all in demolishing Erlands Skels 21-9 to go through into the semi final. He was joined in the semis by Malcolm Manuel who showed some uncharacteristic patience in his win over George Makrakis who had led for a large part of the match until Manuel clawed his way back in to the game and eventually running out the winner by a scoreline of 21-17.
Last year's beaten finalist Rob Vaughan was looking to go one better this year but came up against a hard bat specialist in Ian Henderson who always had too much craft and guile for Vaughan and never looked in trouble beat Vaughan 21-16.
The last of the quarter finals saw Mick Bell and Stuart Element meet with either player capable of going on to win the competition but it was Element who came out on top with a surprisingly comfortable 21-12 victory.
In the semi finals Element was up against Ian Henderson with Element soon gaining an early lead, a lead which he never looked like relinquishing and so it proved to be as Element went on to record a 21-14 win to make it through to his first ever hard bat final.
The second semi final saw Peter Eyre race into an 8-1 lead against Malcolm Manuel which proved a mountain too big to climb for Manuel as he spent the rest of the match trying to play catch up but to no avail as Eyre was in superb form and easily defeated Manuel by 21-11 and make it into his eighth Hard Bat Final.
The final which was played up to 31 was an intriguing battle with both players contributing to some fabulous attacking and defensive rallies before Eyre started to pull away from Element to which proved to be vital in the latter stages of the match with Eyre finally breaking Element's resolve to win the match and the title by 31 points to 23.