Jack Raises The Bar In Hard Bat Competition

After playing some wonderful attacking table tennis Jack Kirkland was crowned the winner of this year’s Hard Bat Competition.
The standard of play from Kirkland with the Hard Bat was top drawer and if he reaches this kind of level year in year out he could reign supreme for many years to come and other players will have to up their game to compete with him.
The competition which was held at Worksop Leisure Centre is the ‘curtain raiser’ to the league season that starts next week attracted 24 players which were split into 4 groups with players being seeded according to their ability and previous results using the hard bat which has short pimples on both sides with no sponge beneath them.

Peter Eyre was seeded number one and came through Group A remaining unbeaten along the way to comfortably qualify for the quarter finals. Joining him in the quarter finals from Group A was veteran Alan Wilson who won four out of his five matches, only losing to Eyre to qualify for the next stages.
In Group B Rob Vaughan who was seeded second in the competition had little trouble topping the group winning all his games to make it through to the knock out stages with Mark Fisher also qualifying losing only once to Vaughan.
The eventual winner of the competition Jack Kirkland was seeded three and came through Group C unscathed winning all his matches without too much trouble. The fight for the runner up spot was much closer and after Russ Webster and Kay Wilson both finished on 3 wins each it had to go to points difference with Webster just edging out Wilson to make it through to the quarter finals.
Group D was a tight affair and threw up the first surprise of the evening with fourth seed Nigel Stent having to beat Ben Swain in the very last group game to sneak through to the quarter finals as runner up. The winner of the group was Jim Westwood who played well to remain unbeaten, winning all of his five group games to make it through to the quarter finals.

Peter Eyre and Russ Webster contested the first of the four quarter finals and true to the form book Eyre soon raced into an early lead, a lead that never looked in danger of being closed and he eventually ran out the winner 21-8 to make it through to the semi-finals.

The second quarter final saw Jack Kirkland and Alan Wilson go toe to toe with some fabulous hitting but Kirkland had too much fire power for Wilson and he secured his place in the semis by beating Wilson 21-12.
Jim Westwood and Mark Fisher came up against each other in the third of the quarter finals and in a match that always looked like it would be close on paper proved to be close on the table as well. Westwood chiselled out an early lead and despite Fisher’s best efforts he managed to keep his nose in front throughout the match, eventually winning it 21-16.
By far the longest game of the evening was the quarter final match between Rob Vaughan and Nigel Stent with one rally alone being over a 100 shots in total! Stent opened up an early lead over Vaughan and looked like he was going to run away with the match before a combination of dogged determination from Vaughan and a number of net cords dragged him back into the match at 15 all. Vaughan then opened a 3 point gap to lead Stent 20-17 before Stent hit back to level at 20-20 with both players knowing that at deuce, the next point won would be the winner and it came as no surprise when Vaughan went for a smash and ended up catching the net which put Stent off just enough to make him hit his return into the net!
The semi-finals were to feature three of the top four seeds with number one seed and current holder of the Hard Bat title Peter Eyre up against number four seed Jack Kirkland. Eyre was looking to reach his tenth Hard Bat final in a row and after winning the last four in succession the odds were in his favour going into the match but Kirkland was in the mood to upset those odds and upset them he did with some fine table tennis and by his own admission a number of nets here and there! Kirkland eventually won the match 21-10 to make it through to the final.
In the other semi-final number two seed Rob Vaughan came up against Jim Westwood who had enjoyed an unbeaten run to the semis but got off to a really poor start and found himself 20-5 down but credit were credit’s due he fought back doggedly to win the next 8 points on the trot but finally went down fighting 21-13 and feeling that if he’d had found his form earlier in the contest then the outcome could have been very different.
So the final was to feature Kirkland and Vaughan which was a repeat of the Hard Bat Final in the Mansfield League from two years ago which Kirkland won and a repeat of last year’s quarter final in Worksop which on that occasion Vaughan won, so honours were even!
The final was played up to 31 points and Kirkland soon stretched into an early 4-1 lead and the signs looked ominous for Vaughan but he stuck at it and ended up clawing the deficit back before going 13-6 in front but being behind only spurred Kirkland on to step his game up a gear or two to go 15-14 up at the change of ends. The momentum was firmly with Kirkland and it was at this stage that it looked like there was only going to be one winner and so it proved to be as Kirkland produced some superb hitting which Vaughan just couldn’t live with and he took the title comfortably in the end by winning 31 points to 22 to be crowned the worthy winner of the Hard Bat competition.