Potter And Sansom Take DTH Senior Doubles Title

On a great night of table tennis at Sparken Hill Academy, Mick Potter and Mark Sansom battled their way to be crowned this year’s winners of the DTH Senior Doubles. 22 players entered this year’s competition and were seeded 1 to 22 with player 1 playing with player 22, player 2 playing with player 21 and so on. The doubles pairings were then split into 2 groups of 5 and 6 pairs respectively with the top 2 pairings in each group going through to the semi-finals. Group A was a very tight group and went right down to the wire with 4 of the 6 pairings still being in with a chance of going through to the semi-finals when the last group games were being played. In the end Potter and Sansom won the group with 148 points with Kartik Lakhani and Dave Lyus also on 148 points going through in second place due to them losing to Potter and Sansom in the group stage. John Hallgarth and Kay Wilson can count themselves a little unfortunate not to go through scoring only one point less on 147 with John Lowde and Chris Tilstone also just missing out on 142.
Group B wasn’t quite as close as Group A but still contained some exciting table tennis with James Wormwell and Perry Bradford were clear winners of the group racking up 116 points to go through. Joining them in the semi-finals was going to be a little less clear as nothing separated the next 2 pairings of Alan Wilson & Chris Clemson and Peter Eyre and Graham Stent but it was Wilson & Clemson that just sneaked it going through by a single point as they chalked up 112 points to 111 of Eyre & Stent.
The semi-final games were one game up to 31 points and both finished with the same score line, Wormwell & Bradford beat Lakhani and Lyus 31-19 with Potter and Sansom defeating Wilson and Clemson by the same score.
Most people were expecting the final to be a real nip and tuck affair but in the end it was anything but as Potter and Sansom soon raced into a healthy lead against Wormwell and Bradford, a lead that they never looked like relinquishing and so it proved to be as they ran out worthy winners 31-15.
The quarter finals of the Carnation Cup were also played at Sparken Hill this week with Kartik Lakhani & Perry Bradford enjoying a narrow 3-2 victory over James Wormwell & Kay Wilson. Another pairing that had the narrowest of wins were Chris Cattell & Scott Lee who edged out Mark Sansom & Neil Fisher, again 3-2.
Enjoying a more comfortable passage into the semi-finals were Erlands Skels & Neil Penny who defeated George Makrakis & Tony Swain 4-1 whilst Clive Eden & Luke Barraclough also went through by the same score against Andy Lee & Cliff Briggs.
Having a cup week in the fixture list this week gave teams from Redlands the chance to play their postponed matches from a few weeks ago when Redlands School was closed for repairs. In Division One DTH Redlands Monsters jumped back to the top of the table with a fine 8-2 win over Stanley Street ‘A’ aided by hat tricks from Orestas and Valentinas Riauba. DTH Redlands Fluffy Toys kept themselves in the running for the Division One title by defeating DTH Redlands X-Youth by the same 8-2 score line with Steve Walkers hat trick being the performance of the night.
In Division Three DTH Redlands Tarr Babies slipped further back in the title race after losing to Worksop Welfare Harriers ‘B’ 7-3. The Harriers Dan Saul being the chief tormentor of the Tarr Babies by remaining undefeated in his three singles games. The win for the Harriers lifts them up to 2^nd place in the Division Three table.