Hollington Community Centre hosted the first, of what is hoped to be, a regular circuit of table tennis competitions for young players from within the Hastings and Rother District.

Twelve players took part in the tournament held on March 11th.

Divided into two groups according to age, an older age group of under-16's and a younger group of under-12's, both sets of players produced some excellent quality of play. This was augmented by a sporting attitude from both the players and their families and friends.

The under-12’s competition was won by Amalina Gorridge, who won all of her group matches. Pipping his club-mate, Hadrian Pain, to the runners-up spot was Amalina’s brother Dylan when he won the last group game when he beat Hadrian over four closely contested games.

The under-16’s competition was closely fought with Beau Larkin emerging top of the group with four wins from five matches. The runners-up position went to James Lawler who won three matches, as did third placed Owen Graham, but had won twelve games to Owen’s nine.

To round off the event the players finishing third to sixth in their group took part in a Consolation Competition. The players from the younger age group played each of the players from the older group. The younger players started with a points advantage, dependent on the age difference, and played one game only to fifteen points. The points from each game were accumulated, the maximum would have been sixty, with the places being decided by the highest number of points. At the conclusion of this competition Hadrian Pain and Freya Pinna-Chapman had both scored 59 points. Hadrian, having beaten Freya in their “head-to-head” match, was awarded first place with Freya runner-up.

The organiser Kevin Long would like to thank Dave Watters, James Gorridge and Aaron Pain for their assistance in running the tournament on the day. Also Mike Funnell for presenting the trophies and Nick Demeza who kept the tea and coffee flowing - not forgetting Hollington TTC for the use of their equipment.

The next tournament is being planned and will hopefully, take place in April.