Success For Wesley At 2nd Championship Finals Night

This week's focus in the Worksop & District Table Tennis League turned to the 2nd of the Annual Championship Final's nights where Richard Wesley was looking to defend two of his titles he won last year. First up was the Open Doubles which he won last year with brother Tom and again the two Wesley brothers had teamed up again to reach the final. They were up against surprise package in Andy Lee and Peter Cowburn who had teamed up at the last minute but despite this they had fought their way to the final with some early impressive results but there were to be no surprises on the night as Richard and Tom Wesley defeated Lee and Cowburn 3-1 to successfully defend their title.
Next up for Richard Wesley was the Open Singles final were his opponent was Chris Cattell who gave Wesley a massive scare after taking a 2-1 lead in the best of 5 match and Wesley had to pull out all the stops to win the 4th set 12-10 to take it into a deciding set. Despite a valiant effort from Cattell he just couldn't do enough to wrestle the title off of Wesley finally losing the last set 11-8 leaving Wesley as Open Singles Champion for the fourth year running.
Perhaps the match of the night belonged to Clive Eden and Matt Turner who were involved in a titanic battle in the Division Three Singles Final. Eden took the first game 11-9 with Turner taking the next two 11-8, 11-9 t lead 2-1 but back game Eden to win the next 11-9 to level the contest at 2-2 and take it into a deciding set and what a set it was! The scores reached deuce at 10-10 and with either playing needing to win by a clear two points it ebbed and flowed one way and then another before Eden finally shook Turner off to win 16-14 and take the honours.
Matt Turner shook the disappointment off of losing by teaming up with Jeff Reay to win the 3rd Division Doubles final against Lewis Comley and Daniel Cutts and although the score line of 3-0 suggests a comfortable win it was nothing of the sort as all three games were close affairs but they just did enough to edge out Comley and Cutts.
One of the surprise finalists this year was Jack Kirkland who had reached the 2nd Division Singles Final as he had missed a number of weeks of the season through illness but he didn't let that stop him taking the first set of the final against Peter Eyre who hadn't lost a Division Two singles game all season. Eyre hit back to take the next game 13-11 to level the match and then found top gear to comfortably win the next two games and take the title.
In the final of the 2nd Division Doubles youngsters Tom McIntosh and Steve Johnson were up against the more experienced pair of Alex Millward and Paul Linfield but McIntosh and Johnson didn't let that worry them and they were soon into their stride taking a tight first game 12-10 before taking the next two games 11-6, 11-7 to comfortably run out winners with both players having talent in abundance, this will surely be the last time we see them in a Division Two competition.
The talent of Steve Johnson was clear to see as he had also reached the final of the Junior Singles against Peter Cowburn which was no mean feat considering the amount of good young players we have in our league. Although Cowburn had earlier lost in the Open Doubles Final he wasn't going to be denied a second time and he made no mistake in taking the title in straight sets to crown a great season.
This Plate Singles final was between Division One player Terry Emmerson and Dave Hodgkin of Division Two and the difference of a division was to tell in the end and despite Hodgkin's best efforts  Emmerson easily won the title in quick fashion winning in straight sets 11-3, 11-8, 11-7.
League Results
Division One: Zygabytes 6 Global Marble 4, Ryton Park Adders 0 Zygabytes 10
Division Two: Manton Tigers 7 DTH Redlands Morris Men 3, Ryton Park Eagles 3 DTH Redlands Red Bulls 7, DTH Redlands Geriatrics 7 Manton Sports 3
Division Three: DTH Redlands Rascals 9 Centre For Sport 1