It’s Sansom At The Double………………Double!!

On a night of some fabulous table tennis, Mark Sansom retained his DTH Senior Doubles title albeit with a different partner from last year in Dan Saul. In total, 26 players turned up to do battle in one of the League’s most popular competitions with the number 1 ranked player paired with the 26^th ranked player whilst the number 2 player was paired with the 25^th and so on.
Games were played up to 21 points with Sansom and Saul topping Group B containing 6 pairings whilst remaining unbeaten returning the maximum 105 points to qualify for the semi-finals.
Also making it through to the semi-final stage from Group B were runners-up Jeff Reay and Mark Fisher who finished just 3 points further back on a 102.
If Group B was a fairly straight forward affair then Group A was anything but as only 2 points separated the top 5 pairings with the winners and runners up spots only being decided in the latter stages of the final 3 games with the winners and runners up only being separated on countback. Thomas Moore and Mick Potter eventually won the group with a 114 points out of a possible 126 and the runners-up on the same points were Dave Hodgkin and Kay Wilson. The next 3 pairings of Rob Vaughan and Derek Piper, Perry Bradford and Mark Bloomer and Helmuth Osborne and Dave Lee were unlucky not to make the top two places finishing only a further 2 points back on 112 points.
The first semi-final was between Sansom and Saul who were up against Hodgkin and Wilson and in a great game which ebbed and flowed throughout it was Sansom and Saul who won it 31 points to 28.
The second semi-final between Reay and Fisher and Moore and Potter was even closer and ended up going right down to the wire. The match clawed its way to 30-30 and with no deuce in the particular competition it was anyone’s game and it was Reay and Fisher who held their nerve to win the deciding point to make it through to the final by the narrowest of margins winning 30-31.
Reay and Fisher may have been involved in the tightest of contests in their semi-final but unfortunately for them the final didn’t follow suit. Sansom and Saul dominated the final with Reay and Fisher never looking like they would threaten their opponents from the first few points onwards. Sansom and Saul went into an early lead, a lead that never looked threatened throughout the match and they comfortably dispatched their opponents in a one sided contest winning it 31-15 to be crowned DTH Senior Doubles Champions.