National Junior League - 26 November 2016 

The second round of North London Region National Junior League matches for 2016/17 was held at Ellenborough TTC, Enfield on Saturday 26 November 2016. After the first round of matches the two man A Team were in fifth place but today they had the top three teams to play. Unfortunately they again only had two players after Harrison Matthews hobbled home on one leg after an ankle injury in the late afternoon school football match the previous afternoon. After the first round the B team were seventh in their eight team Division and had already beaten the one team beneath them. Whereas last time Adam Chalk was unable to play for the B Team because of mock exams on the day it was Harry Rogers studying for his mock exams who did not play this time.

For their first match the A Team of Connor Payne and Matthew Laws played bottom team Ellenborough A who were able to play their top players this time. Connor lost his first and last matches to both Joshua Stolz-Hunter and Aaron Fox at 11-8 in the deciding fifth games but beat Dylan Franks 1, -8, 2, 9 in his middle match. Matthew pulled back a 13, 8 deficit in his first match with Aaron to win the next two games but was never in the decider losing it 11-2. He also lost close 3-1 matches to Joshua and Dylan. Thus an 8-1 defeat.

Their second match was against the current runners up Mossford A whose Essex colleagues were all ranked above the Chelmsford players. This time it was Matthew who lost two of his matches 11-8 in the deciding game, firstly to Hirdaipal Jaswal after being 2-1 up, then to Ben Williams -6, 8, -9, 11, 8 after have four match points in the fourth game but finally a 6, 9, 7 win over Joshua Ball. Connor lost 12-10 in the fourth game of his opening match with Joshua when there was a chance of a decider, then lost 10, -8, -13, 8, 10 to Hirdaipal and finally 3-1 to Ben. Another 8-1 defeat.

For their third match the Chelmsford team were due to play Barnet but that Team failed to arrive so they were awarded a 6-0 win, unable to claim the full nine points as they were a player short.

For their final match of the day and the match that completed the first round of matches where all teams had played one another, they played the leaders (by 19 points and last season’s winners) Graham Spicer. As expected a 9-0 defeat, all matches lost 3-0 but both players had very close matches with David Suk and unlucky not to take those matches to a fourth game.

A Team.          Connor Payne 1 out of 9: Matthew Laws 1 out of 9.

The B Team’s first match was against Mossford B; the leaders of the Division after the first round of matches. Jamie and Adam played the opening two matches and both went to a deciding game. Jamie Penkman lost the first two games to Muhammad Saleh but came back to win the final game 12-10 whilst Adam having won the first two games against Partha Mulay lost the next three. Aidan Noguchi then beat Kanishka Senthilnathar 3-1 after losing the first game. Adam came closest to another win when losing 11-9 in the deciding game with Kanishka and Jamie’s match with the same player was the only other match not to be lost 3-0. A 7-2 defeat.

Their next match was against Ellenborough B. Adam had a very close opening match with Victor Ostapenko finally winning it 10, -10, -4, 7, 9 after Jamie had lost to Samadhi Udamulla 3-0. She went on to beat both Adam and Aidan 3-1 while Jamie had wins against both Richard Huang, a nail biting -11, -8, 9, 14, 9, and Victor 3-1. For the first time in five rounds of matches Aidan failed to register a win losing also to Richard 3-0 and Victor 3-1 and with Adam losing his other match also 3-1 a 3-6 defeat.

Their third match was against third placed Warren Spring B which finished with the same scoreline. In the opening matches Jamie beat Arshbir Singh 3-1 whilst on the other table Adam had to come back from 2-1 down to beat Samuel Dermont 3-2. Later on Aidan had to recover from 2-0 down to finally get the better of Samuel -9, -9, 4, 10, 9 after losing to both Victor Ramirez Rioja and Arshbir 3-0 each time. Jamie and Adam both lost their other two matches with similar scores, 3-0 and 3-1.

The last match of the day was against current runners up Fusion 2 who had won their previous three matches by large margins. Unfortunately for the Chelmsford team this was also the case this match. Aiden was the closest to a win after taking Ivan Berdnakov the full distance finally losing 8, 9, -14, -6, 8. Adam lost two of his matches 3-1 to Elliott Namafo and Ivan whilst Jamie lost to Joshua Bruce 3-1. The other five matches were all lost 3-0.

B Team           Jamie Penkman 4 out of 12, Adam Chalk 2 out of 12 and Aidan Noguchi 2 out of 12.

  DIVISION 1 TABLE                           

  DIVISION 2 TABLE                           

The next round will also be four matches on Saturday 4 February 2017 and finishing time is likely to be around 5.30pm.

A decision now has to be made as to whether there will be any promotion and relegation between the Divisions.

Looking back over the days play it would appear a sporting banker that Graham Spicer will retain the Division 1 Title they won last year with a day to spare if there is no promotion or relegation between the Divisions. If there is to be promotion/relegation then every team starts again with no points over the final two rounds of matches.

The Chelmsford players all found this day a much tougher proposition where they were playing opponents ranked much higher than themselves. There were some very good matches and some very close and with a little more luck, or less interference from adjacent tables, one or two wins in each Division might have been achieved. Hopefully the A Team will have a full team in February.

Arthur C. Clark
Chelmsford Junior League Secretary