Former champion Brandon Crouchman brought off the win of the weekend at the Braintree Table Tennis League’s individual tournament when he knocked out many people’s favourite for the open singles title Harry Chivers.
Crouchman, who won the title in 2017, has played very little this season and was expected to find life hard against the speed of his 17-year-old opponent.
But he mixed up his shots, crashing the ball through Chivers’ defence on occasion but taking the pace off the ball at other times as he edged home 11-9, 8-11, 11-7, 13-11 in a tense quarter final.
Crouchman will be joined in the semi-finals – to be played on finals night at the Earls Colne Recreation Centre on Friday – by two other champions, Lee McHugh, winner in 2019, and current holder Paul Davison, plus last year’s runner-up Paul Lucas.
While experience triumphed in Crouchman’s case, youth had its day when 16-year-old Omar Wasi became the only unseeded player to reach the last eight by knocking out equal No.5 seed Kuang Htet Paing in three straight games – only to run into an unrelenting Davison in the quarter final.
Crouchman and Chivers will face each other again in the final of the men’s doubles.
Top seeds Crouchman and Liberal A teammate Scott Dowsett came past McHugh and Adam Buxton in the semi-final to face Chivers and Kuang Htet Paing in the final after the latter’s victory over Davison and Ashley Skeggs.
Chivers and Wasi – like Paing making their finals night debut – will be at opposite ends of the table in the final of the junior boys’ singles while at the other end of the age scale, Davison and Lucas will stage a repeat of last year’s final in the veterans’ singles.
Also making their first appearance on finals night will be the ladies’ singles finalists Louise Hartshorn and Lorraine Burgess, who both made their way comfortably past the opposition.
Hartshorn and Sudbury Wanderers teammate Ian Shrubsole will pit their wits against Lucas and his 14-year-old daughter Amelie in the final of the mixed doubles.
He faces last year’s finalist Adi Kamma.
Hartshorn could make it a treble as she and Canning have already secured the ladies’ doubles title, which was played to a finish at the weekend.
In other events decided at the weekend, Paul Davison maintained his hold on the veterans’ doubles trophy that he has won in each of the four years since it was introduced, and with three different partners.
This time he and James Hicks overcame Paul Lucas and Paul Lombardi 9-11, 11-5, 11-7, 11-8.
Wasi took the division one singles title with an 11-7, 11-5, 11-5 win in the final over Oliver Hicks.
Rev Matthews took the division two title after a tight11-9-in-the-fifth-game win over Hartshorn and Charles Calisin was crowned division three champion
Calisin and Wasi upset the odds by beating Chivers and Jack Dearsley in straight games in the junior doubles final and Wasi was on the winning side in both the handicap events.
He beat Ben Southgate in the final of the handicap singles and joined Davina Brazier to win the handicap doubles with a win in the final over Jill Canning and Stewart Ireland
Amelie Lucas took the girls’ singles title with three comfortable wins in a round robin event while Ethan Collins took both the cadets and under 11 titles.
The hard bat singles was won by Harry Chivers with a victory over Lee McHugh in the final.