THE Cippenham Table Tennis Club second team won one match and lost the other in National Division C5 when the third Senior British League session was played at their venue.
However, in a division where the top teams are closely matched, the loss of those two points saw Cippenham drop from second to fourth position, but they retain an outside chance of the title when the league finalises in March.
The session started well with a 7-3 defeat of bottom team Haywards Heath II.
Anthony Ellis lost a close opening set against Luke Gallagher but Simon Vine hit back when beating Michael Bridger 3-0.
Shae Thakker, over Charlie Hough, and Paul Baker, who sneaked home 12-10 in the deciding game against Keigo Burnham, put Cippenham 3-1 up after the first singles exchanges.
The Cippenham pairings then won both doubles to go 5-1 up, before Ellis lost again. Thakker and Vine romped to easy victories over Gallagher and Burnham to secure a full set of league points, before Baker lost closely in the final set to Hough.
PHOTO: Simon Vine of Cippenham Table Tennis Club
There are two sides from Haywards Heath in the division and Cippenham were pitched against their first team, a tougher proposition.
The Heath got off to a flying start as Marc Burman and Shaun Parsley beat Vine and Ellis respectively, but Cippenham hit back in fine style. Baker won a tough battle with Ben Worley and then the youngster in the team, Thakker, totally eclipsed Dennis Hayden.
Both doubles again went Cippenham’s way and the host team found themselves 4-2 ahead, but their run of victories ended there and they mustered a mere three games from the final four sets of singles, eventually losing 6-4.
The Cippenham first team of Josh Bennett, Martin Adams, Rob Hansell and Martin Gray knew that the trip to BATTS Harlow would be a challenging prospect, facing two of the top three teams – Nottingham Sycamore and London Academy – and still pointless so far in the extremely tough Championship Division.
Despite a few good individual performances with Bennett crushing England women’s champion, Tin Tin Ho, and an impressive victory for Gray over Shaquille Webb-Dixon, the day once again proved fruitless and both matches were lost 7-1.
E-mail your sports news, reports and pictures to rob.stevens@newsquest.co.uk
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