The third round of North London Region National Junior League matches for 2018/19 was held at Ellenborough TTC, Enfield on Saturday 26 January 2019. After the second round of matches Chelmsford A were in second position in Division 2, the most competitive of the four Divisions. Consequently there was no promotion/relegation between the Divisions. As for the B Team they led Division 4 by six points over Fusion TTC 2. They had a slightly weaker team for the day due to the clash with the Schools Tournament.
The A Team comprised of their normal team of Aidan Noguchi, Charlie Craig and Harry Buckle . The B Team were Vineeth Kamma, Joachin Mapes now recovered from his accident and Saul Chivers.
The A Team’s first match was again against Elmgreen DTTC, the current Division leaders, a team that they had narrowly lost 5-4 to in the first round and 7-2 in the second round of matches. Juan, Danner and Emilio were again their team. Aidan lost to Emilio for the third time and on the other table Harry again had a marathon match with Juan, previously beating him 11-9 in the decider, and this time an even closer match which he finally won 10-12, 11-9, 11-5, 9-11, 12-10. Charlie’s two matches previously with Danner had both resulted in fifth game deuce results, one win each. This time Charlie won 3-1. The next two matches were lost, Aidan losing to Juan 3-1 and Charlie 3-0 to Emilio but Harry’s 3-1 win over Danner made the match score 3-3. The next two matches were shared, Charlie losing 3-0 to Juan and Aidan a 3-0 win over Danner. The last match was between Harry and Emilio and Emilio kept his unbeaten record against the Chelmsford team with a 3-0 win. Another 4-5 defeat.
Their next match was against Twickenham Brunswick A, who had won the previous two matches 5-4. There was a chance of a win for the Chelmsford team as their opponents only had two players, Harshil Shah and Sihao Zhou, promoted up from their C Team. Against Harshil, Aidan had lost the first match 3-1 and won the second 11-7 in the decider. Another five game match which he lost 10, -3, -3, 7, 5 after leading 2-1. Harry won his two matches both 3-0 and Charlie beat Sihao 3-0 but lost 3-0 to Harshil as he had the two previous rounds of matches but 3-1. Aidan completed the match with a 3-0 win over Sihao for a 7-2 win which included the three awarded matches.
The final match of the day was against Ellenborough B who they had beaten 7-2 in the previous two rounds of matches. This time Ellenborough fielded a much stronger team comprising Victor Ostapenko, Richard Huang and Max Gunpot. Not a good start for the Chelmsford team. A 3-1 defeat for Aidan against Victor as he had in the previous round, for Harry against Richard a -7. -7, 10, 7, 11, defeat after leading 2-0 and unable to win either of the deuce games and for Charlie a 3-1 defeat by Max. Charlie went on to lose his other two matches 3-1 after winning the first game of each. Harry won his second match 11-5 in the deciding game with Victor after winning the two opening games and Aidan beat Max 3-1 to make the match score 2-3. In his final match Harry beat Max 8, 9, 8 and Aidan lost the last match of the day to Richard 3-1 as he had done in the first round of matches back in October. A 3-6 result.
DIVISION 2 TABLE
P W L Pts
Elmgreen DTTC 9 7 2 49
Chelmsford A 9 3 6 42
Ellenborough B 9 4 5 40
Twickenham Brunswick A 9 4 5 31
The B Team‘s first opponents should have been Mossford 3 who they had beaten 7-2 in each of the previous two rounds of matches. However the team had no players so conceded a 9-0 result to the Chelmsford team. Disappointing that a Club the size of Mossford were unable to field a team although I was informed that two players pulled out late on the Friday evening.
The Team’s first match of the day was therefore against Twickenham Brunswick C who they had beaten 7-2 and 9-0 in the previous two rounds of matches. Twickenham had Louis McPhee again and Oliver Dugaric and Thomas Ibison as Sihao Zhou had been moved up to their A Team.
The team were soon 4-0 up, Vineeth only dropped eight points in his match with Louis and subsequently seventeen points to beat Oliver. Joachin needed four games to beat Oliver and Saul beat Thomas 5, 12, 10. In his next match against Louis the match went the full distance finally losing 8, -9, 11, -7, 9 and in his final match against Oliver the same end result after coming back from 2-0 down to be defeated 9-11, 7-11, 11-7, 13-11, 9-11. Joachin beat Thomas 9, -12, 3, 7 but suffered the same way as Saul after being 2-0 up against Louis losing 5-11, 6-11,11-9, 11-8, 12-10. In his final match Vineeth continued his ruthless form again the bottom team only dropping nine points to Thomas. Final score 6-3.
Their final match was against the current runners up Fusion 2 who were now only three points behind them. The previous two matches had resulted in 5-4 wins for the Chelmsford Team and Fusion’s team was Kevin Luu, Felix Jones and Mohammed Ahmed, the same team that played in the first round of matches. Vineeth opened with a 3-0 win over Kevin while on the other table Saul lost to Felix Jones 7, 8, 11. Fusion took the lead when Mohammed beat Joachin 3-0 and Kevin then became unwell and had to concede his other two matches. Vineeth gave his team the lead with a tight 10, 9, 11 win over Mohammed, avenging his previous defeat and Joachin increased the lead with a deciding game 11-9 win against Felix. Saul then lost 3-0 to Mohammed and although he dropped his only game of the day Vineeth beat Felix for a 6-3 team win.
DIVISION 4 TABLE
Chelmsford B 9 9 0 62
Fusion TTC 2 9 6 3 56
Twickenham Brunswick C 9 1 8 26
Mossford 3 9 2 7 18
TABLES FOR THE TWO OTHER DIVISIONS ARE:
DIVISION 1 TABLE
Ellenborough A 9 8 1 55
Watford Jets 6 5 1 36
Woodford Wells 1 6 1 5 14
Mossford 1 9 1 5 21
DIVISION 3 TABLE
Fusion TTC 1 9 8 1 64
Woodford Wells 2 9 7 2 53
Twickenham Brunswick 2 9 1 8 25
Mossford 2 9 2 7 20
There will be no promotion/ relegation between the Divisions after this round.
The next and last round will be three matches on Saturday 9 March and finishing time is likely to be about 4.00pm.
Arthur C Clark - Chelmsford Junior Match Secretary
