MARTIN Gunn is taking a liking to open tournaments at Cippenham Table Tennis Club as his latest results would suggest.

For the third time in less than three months, the Old Windsor resident has walked away with a title having won two senior awards in February and, last weekend, emerging supreme at the Super Six Veterans’ Two-Star Open.

In total, Gunn has now won four of the last seven veterans’ opens at Cippenham, as well as those two senior titles.

He seems to have found a new lease of life since swapping his modern sponge bat in favour of a classic hard bat about 18 months ago and, in that regard, he is almost unique.

Opponents are unused to playing against such a style, which requires much greater technical ability compared to playing with modern bat, which rubber technology has made more forgiving.

Gunn dropped only one game in nine matches as he serenely made his way to the title. That game was against John Hook in the preliminary round group.

After winning his five matches at that stage, Gunn quickly disposed of Ray Goulding in the first knock-out round, Robert Gladstone in the quarter-final, and Neil Wright in the last four.

That took him into the final where his Reading League teammate Hari Gehlot was the opponent. However, Gunn was too strong for the 2016 Maidenhead League champion and won the final 12-10, 11-8, 11-8.

Top-seeded Gehlot had not enjoyed quite an easy route to the final. Both Bharat Malde and Roger Harris took a game each off him at the preliminary round stage.

In the quarter-final, Mark Farrow succumbed 3-1 and Richard Hutchinson fared no better in the semi-final.

Third seed Wright duly made his allotted place in the semi-finals and did not drop a game en route until faced by Gunn.

In the quarter-final he beat Simon Vine in a match that ended the Cippenham players’ impressive run. Vine finished runner-up in the group, one place above his ranking position, losing only to fourth seed Mike Rhodes.

Once at the knock-out stage, he proceeded to eliminate Steve Davis, winner of the previous veterans’ open at Cippenham. However, the canny play of Wright was too much for Vine in the last eight.

Rhodes, a long-time member of the the host club, duly won his group but missed out at the knock-out stage against his nemesis Kevin Nicholls who, in turn, was eliminated by Hutchinson in the quarter-final.

Geoff Grange of Middlesex beat Hampshire-based Ramesh Bhalla in the veterans’ consolation event.

The tournament was organised by Graham Trimming and refereed by Peter Hillier.