{"id":1955,"date":"2022-12-28T18:00:38","date_gmt":"2022-12-28T17:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1955"},"modified":"2022-12-28T18:07:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-28T17:07:46","slug":"thorpe-bay-a-halfway-to-the-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/2022\/12\/28\/thorpe-bay-a-halfway-to-the-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Thorpe Bay A halfway to the title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
SDTTL Premier Division<\/u><\/strong>
\u00a0It was the week and the result we were all looking out for, the clash of the two title contenders as\u00a0Thorpe Bay A<\/strong>\u00a0hosted\u00a0Rawreth A<\/strong>\u00a0and it was the home side that came out on top with a quite astonishing 8-1 victory. Rawreth A might not have had their top two performers in Matt Spero and Wanda Syderenko in their ranks on the night, but it was a strong line-up of Yas and Zayd Mauthoor and Charles Sweeney. However, the Rawreth trio were no match for John Poysden, Paul Whatton and Paul Sayer with only Sayer dropping a game to Yas Mauthoor. The result puts Thorpe Bay 8 points clear at the half way stage of the season, which I\u2019m sure will prompt Rawreth into a strong second half in an attempt to reel them back in.

Elsewhere there were 6-3 wins for\u00a0Hockley A<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Hadleigh Forum A<\/strong>\u00a0over\u00a0Rawreth B<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Rayleigh Mill<\/strong>\u00a0respectively, with Andy Cunningham (Hockley) and Peter Radford (Rayleigh) the only two unbeaten players in those matches.

So at the bottom end of the table there are two teams in danger at the halfway stage and both\u00a0Rayleigh Mill<\/strong>, who to be fair have been ravaged with injury, and\u00a0Hadleigh Forum A<\/strong>\u00a0will be looking for a much stronger 2023 in an attempt to stay in the top flight.

Div 1
Leaders\u00a0Invicta A<\/strong>\u00a0were knocked off their perch this week by second-placed\u00a0Brand Identity B.<\/strong>\u00a0The 7-2 home win puts Brand Identity to the top of the pile by the slenderest of margins \u2013 one point. Barrie Delf was once again the home side\u2019s hero, winning all his three and talking the Player of the Match award, too. Adam Jackman and Mick Grout each recorded two wins, whilst Steve Marr was Invicta\u2019s best played taking two victories.There was a good evening\u2019s table tennis when\u00a0Hadleigh Forum B<\/strong>\u00a0visited\u00a0Lentern<\/strong>. Every player made a contribution, but Lentern\u2019s ex-Forum player John Tendler took the POM honour for his two wins. He wasn\u2019t alone though, as both the home team\u2019s Gus Heath and Ian Cranstone also recorded braces. In a similar vein, all the Forum team (David Woolmer, Paul Fawell and Mike Tappenden) recorded one each. Undoubtedly, the highlight of the evening was a bonus round of tea and biscuits!
Mapledene\u00a0<\/strong>were too strong for their hosts\u00a0Canvey A<\/strong>. A Lin Roff hat trick led them to a comfortable 7-2 away win and gave her the POM prize. Charles Yeung and Mike Johnston chipped in with two wins each, whilst Canvey\u2019s Ray Wilson was again their best player, earning both his side\u2019s successes. The match was closer than the score suggests, though. Three rubbers were decided in the fifth and final set, one 8\/11, one 11\/13 and the other 13\/15.There was\u00a0a Rawreth<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018derby\u2019 this week, when the\u00a0D team<\/strong>\u00a0hosted the\u00a0E team<\/strong>. The youngsters of Rawreth D were taught a bit of a lesson by their more experienced club colleagues. Gary Hartgrove and Trevor Ward both recorded maximums, whilst Colin Clements had two successes. Well done to Jake Nelson, who overcame Colin quite easily in the final contest of the night.
Division 2<\/u><\/strong>
\u00a0There were a few surprises in Division 2 this week as league leaders\u00a0RESSC<\/strong>\u00a0just avoided defeat for the first time this season scraping home 5-4 against\u00a0Stanford B<\/strong>, whilst promotion hopefuls\u00a0Wakering<\/strong>\u00a0were surprisingly beaten by the same score by a youthful\u00a0Hullbridge B\u00a0<\/strong>side. Not being unkind to\u00a0Rawreth F,<\/strong>\u00a0but perhaps the biggest surprise of the week was that firstly, they managed to get a full team out and, secondly, they thrashed\u00a0Canvey B 8-1!<\/strong>
Turning to the\u00a0Rawreth F \/Canvey B<\/strong>\u00a0match first of all, it\u2019s fairly well documented how\u00a0Rawreth F<\/strong>\u00a0have, through no fault of their own, fallen behind in their games due to the vagaries of the fixture list and secondly, despite a large squad to call on, they have still struggled to get their best players out together. All that changed this week as Simon Neale, Mike Hayes and Jan Thorpe steamrollered\u00a0Canvey B<\/strong>\u00a0winning the first four games without dropping a set, led 6-0, and having conceded a point when Trevor Hayes beat Jan, eventually won 8-1. All this against a team sitting fourth in the table! It will be interesting to see just what sort of an impact they could make if they can consistently field this or a similarly strong team.
Runaway leaders\u00a0RESSC\u00a0<\/strong>came within a whisker of defeat against\u00a0Stanford B<\/strong>\u00a0as they found themselves 4-1 down before fighting back to 4-4 leading to a final match showdown between Rob Salvage and Bob Skews. Both players were unbeaten at that stage and Rob must have been hoping he was going to clinch his hat trick as he led 2-0 winning 11\/7, 11\/8 but only to find Bob was in no mood to pass up his own chance of staying unbeaten. Slowly but surely, he drew level winning 12\/10, 11\/9 and then finally edged home 11\/9 again to clinch the match. Kevin Smart and Ron Coutts were the other points winners for RESSC, whilst Mark Downey and John Handscombe did similarly for Stanford.
If third placed\u00a0Wakering<\/strong>\u00a0were aware of\u00a0RESSC\u2019<\/strong>s struggles and hoping to take advantage when they played lowly Hullbridge A, they were soon brought down to earth as youngsters Jack Riley and Evie Knaapen chalked up some excellent wins to clinch a surprise 5-4 win. It was all down to the last match of the evening again as young Jack took on Stewart Mills, and it went all the way to the fifth set before Jack ran out a convincing 11-4 winner. Jack had already beaten Paul England and also clinched another five-set win against Paul\u2019s son Zac, and he was backed up by Evie who beat Paul and Stewart but lost to Zac. There was no joy for Debbie O\u2019Neill of Hullbridge. This win pushes them up a place in the table and shows what a force they could be in the league this season.
Hadleigh Forum C<\/strong>\u00a0cemented their position of second in the table with a 6-3 defeat of\u00a0Runnymede.\u00a0<\/strong>Mark Everard finished POTM winning all his games with support from Graham Farmer, two wins, and one from Tony Mace. There were no less than five, five setters, on the night but four of those finished up being won by Forum. Andrew Humphris did best for Runnymede winning two games and losing in five to Mark with just one win for Phil Digby and, surprisingly, no wins for Dmitry Kisil.
Division 3\u00a0<\/u><\/strong>
Three matches to report on this week. Steve Lennox and David Barnes led the way with maximums for\u00a0Invicta B<\/strong>\u00a0in a 7-2 win against\u00a0Stanford C<\/strong>.\u00a0 Sarah Ball with the extra point.\u00a0 Mention should be made of Stanford skipper Mark Farley who came close in two five-setters before losing out 11-9 and 12-10 in the final end to David and Sarah respectively. \u00a0Vaughan Chambers and Peter Moxham were the point winners for Stanford. A good team performance by\u00a0Hockley E<\/strong>\u00a0as they overcame\u00a0Rawreth G<\/strong>\u00a0by 6-3.\u00a0 Two wins each for Graham Gregory, Ellis Marley and Hermann Maier doing the damage for the home side.\u00a0 Ellis Hartopp was the best player on the night for Rawreth with wins over Hermann and Graham.\u00a0 Ellery Pearson picked up the other point with a win over Ellis Marley. Megazone<\/strong>\u00a0kept up their pursuit of\u00a0Hockley D<\/strong>\u00a0at the top of the table with a 6-3 win over a two-man\u00a0Hullbridge B<\/strong>.\u00a0 Joe Bennett, Steve McQuillan and Amar Al-Soufi all recorded victories over Jeff Gritzman, but none of the three could get the better of hat-trick hero, Alex Bowden, although Amar came close before eventually coming up short at 8-11 in the 5th<\/sup>\u00a0set.
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    SDTTL Premier Division\u00a0It was the week and the result we were all looking out for, the clash of the two title contenders as\u00a0Thorpe Bay A\u00a0hosted\u00a0Rawreth A\u00a0and it was the home side that came out on top with a quite astonishing 8-1 victory. Rawreth A might not have had their top two performers in Matt Spero […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1955"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1961,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955\/revisions\/1961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}