The Usual Suspects Strike Again

With a great turnout, the 2019/20 season kicked off this week with the Hard Bat competition played out at Worksop Leisure Centre.
The competition which was fabulously run by Nigel and Fiona Stent comprised of four groups with four players in each group. Group A was won by the defending champion Jack Kirkland who won all his three matches to top the group with Russ Webster finishing as runner up to also qualify for the quarter finals.
Group B had Peter Eyre in it who had won the Hard Bat Competition on seven previous occasions and his skills with the hard bat continued again this year as he comfortably won the group to make it through to the next round. He was joined in the quarter finals by Jim Westwood who secured 2nd place in the group with wins over Alan Wilson and Jerry Collins.
Rob Vaughan who had been runner up in three out of the last four finals got his quest to go one better this year by comfortably winning group three whilst remaining unbeaten. The runners up spot wasn't so clear cut with three players battling it out for the right to go through to the next round. Mark Fisher, Erland Skels and Dean Marsh all had very close matches with each other but it was Skels who eventually prevailed by beating Marsh 21-20 to go through.
Group D was also a tight group and probably threw up the only real surprise of the evening as Division Three player Michael Candy did really well to qualify for the quarter finals by finishing runner up in the group. Group D was won by Andy Kirkland who like all the other three group winners, won all his three group matches comfortably.
The line ups for the quarter finals were now known with some great matches in store for all the rest of the players who had remained to watch the rest of the competition.
First up was the match between Peter Eyre and Erland Skels with Eyre being in control throughout and eventually running out the winner 21-12 to secure his place in the semi-finals.
Next to join Eyre in the semis was Jack Kirkland who dispatched Michael Candy 21-16 but Candy can be proud of his efforts to make it through to the quarter finals.
The third quarter final saw Andy Kirkland trying to make it through to the next round to set up a semi-final match against his son Jack but Russ Webster proved to be too strong on this occasion and he eventually lost 21-12 as Webster went through.
The last quarter final saw Rob Vaughan and Jim Westwood have a real battle which ebbed and flowed until the change of ends when Westwood stretched out a lead which Vaughan couldn't claw back with Westwood winning 21-16 to deservedly go through to the semi-finals.
The semi-finals were no pushovers for both of the eventual winners but both probably had enough in reserve to call on if needed. The first semi saw Jack Kirkland come up against Russ Webster who toiled away throughout but just couldn't stay with Kirkland to really test him and Kirkland eventually won 21-15 to make it through to the final.
In the second semi-final Peter Eyre faced Jim Westwood who had been in good form throughout the competition but found Eyre a little too hot to handle playing good attacking table tennis and Westwood eventually went out of the competition losing 21-16.
The semi-finals had seen some great table tennis but the standard in the final was terrific and a credit to both players. The final was up to 31 points with no deuce, Eyre started the match the better of the two players and moved into an early lead but Kirkland eventually found his rhythm to claw his way back into the match and when the players changed ends at the halfway point, there was nothing between them. After the change, Eyre again started the better of the two and again carved out a lead and at that stage looked in control of the match. Yet again Kirkland hit back and fought his way back into the match to eventually lead 28-25 and 30-28 but Eyre showed some real tenacity to level the contest at 30 points each to make it the closest possible finish. Whoever took the next point would win the whole competition and it was Eyre that managed to nick it to take the Hard Bat title 31-30 to crown a great night of table tennis.