Table tennis round-up

Burnham & District Table Tennis League The handicap knockout cup final played last week at Maldon table tennis club proved to be a cracking match.

Division three side West Maldon C (Rob Sach +9, Tim Stubbings +11 and Bradley Smith +15) met Woodham A (Jean Chasmer -6, Peter Chasmer -5 and Stefan Oliverio +9) which was a mix of players from divisions one and three, unfortunately for Woodham Ev Lucas who had played in every round until the final was unavailable. West Maldon got off to a good start when Rob Sach and Bradley Smith took the first doubles two sets to one despite only winning three points in the first set against Peter Chasmer and Stefan Oliverio. Jean Chasmer then levelled things up as she just edged out Tim Stubbings 21-17,10-21,22-20, Peter and Stefan then both won their singles and when Peter and Jean beat Rob and Tim 21-19,22-20 in the next doubles things looked bleak for West Maldon at 1-4 down and Woodham just needing one more success for the win. The match looked to be all over when in the next singles Stefan Oliverio was ahead 15-8 in the deciding set against Tim Stubbings but then Tim staged a magnificent comeback to win the set 21-19. No doubt encouraged by that win Rob Sach recorded a three set win over Jean Chasmer to bring the match score to 4-3 to Woodham. The last singles saw Peter Chasmer having the daunting task of facing a 20 point deficit against the hard hitting Bradley Smith, in a superb demonstration of patient handicap play Peter returned virtually everything Bradley threw at him and played as close to an error free game as you are ever likely to see making just two unforced errors in three sets of table tennis to win 21-19, 10-21, 22-20 to seal the cup for Woodham.

The final major issue in the league was settled when Fambridge A made sure of the runners-up spot in division one by beating Stow Maries A 10-0 in their final fixture to just edge out Maldon A whose challenge suffered from an inability to consistently put out a strong side.