Reading Closed Championships - previous years

2016/17 Championships

The 2016/17 Closed Championships were held over the weekend of 11/12th February at two venues:

   Sat 11th February 2017 (Senior & Veteran events) - at Reading Blue Coat School (VENUE)

   Sun 12th February 2017 (Junior events) - at Cippenham Table tennis Club (VENUE)

** see below for links to the full sets of results **

** see GALLERY page for photos

Report on Senior & Veteran Events

The Senior events were held at Blue Coat School in Sonning which proved to be an excellent venue. It was comfortably able to hold 8 tables which meant all the senior events could be completed in one day, rather than needing a weekend as in previous years.

Wendy Porter put in a huge amount of time and effort to prepare the venue and the draws for the 11 events, as well as running the tournament on the day – and this despite the fact that her first grandchild was due to be delivered that day!

Unfortunately there were no entrants for the Ladies Singles, Ladies Doubles or Mixed doubles (apart from Wendy) so these events could not be run.  For the other events, there were the inevitable late withdrawals, but this did allow some of the late entrants to be given entry in to some of the events.

This year’s Championships were run using some computer software which is specifically designed for sports tournaments. It included online entry for all events, which seemed to work well and allowed everyone to see who was entering each event on the days before the entry deadline. Once the seeding, the draws and the scheduling for each event had been completed, the new software also enabled this information to be made visible on the tournament website. This meant everyone could see the approximate timings of their scheduled matches and who their opponents would be.  

As the events progressed throughout the day, the results were entered on the tournament software and periodically uploaded to the tournament website – so those competitors with smartphones (and those interested at home) could see the event results almost as they happened, see how each event was progressing and see who their next opponent would be.

After a withdrawal allowed Hari Gehlot’s late entry to the tournament, he won the Mens singles after being 2 games down to Krasi Ivanov in the final.  Hari also beat Ian Cole to win the final of the Veterans Singles and Wendy Porter to win the Senior Veterans event.  The Mens Doubles saw unexpected winners as Jon Willis and Marc Brent beat all of their opponents without losing an end, including Ian Cole and Joe Barraclough in the final.  Melvyn Lovegrove took the Over 60s title having played a total of 18 matches throughout the day, while Eric Holmes (who played 14 times himself) finished his day by winning the final of the Ping Pong event.

Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up in each of the events, who are listed below, and thanks to everyone who came along and took part.  Please look at the tournament website to see details of all the events that were run – the draws, the scores and all the associated statistics. 

Due to having to vacate the venue by 5:30pm, the main finals could not be staged, which was a shame, but I don’t think it spoilt the day for anyone.

What did become apparent during the day was that some matches were being delayed by one or two people who seemed to be playing in every event!  This caused some scheduling problems, so in future years the organisers may need to consider restricting the number of events a person can enter.

Many thanks to the various volunteers who helped on the day and ensured the venue was cleared on time. Special thanks to Emma & Joe Barraclough, who stayed late on Friday evening getting everything in place and arranging the refreshments, and to Duncan Groves who helped Wendy with match management and covered for her when she was playing.

But most of all, our thanks go to Wendy for everything she did to ensure the Senior and Junior events all ran so well at the weekend, when I know she would rather have been with her family.

Nick Lean

Report on Junior Events

The Junior tournament was held at Cippenham TTC on Sunday 12th February.  It was an early start, but everyone turned up on time and the tournament started promptly at 9am.  There was a good turnout with 23 players competing across the six events. 

Wendy Porter did a great job of organising the tournament and the whole day ran very smoothly.  The new method of running the tournament using the Tournament software was a success: entering results and uploading them to the Tournament website was a simple process and it was helpful to be able to see the draws and timings ahead of the day. The added bonus for someone like myself, who unfortunately had to leave just before the semis and finals were played, was that I could log on later from home and find out who had won.

Some great table tennis matches were played throughout the day. There were several well-fought five set matches and a few games that went in to the high teens before a final result was reached.  What also stood out was the great sportsmanship shown amongst all the players throughout the day.

Congratulations to the winners of the events: Joe Barraclough (U21s and Junior Boys), Jamie Barlow (Cadet Boys and U13s), Johnson Xu (Youth Division) and Joe Barraclough/Adam Winterbottom (Junior Boys doubles). Well done to all runners-up (Jamie Barlow, Johnson Xu, Ralph Philips, Mo Cook, Dylan Cook and Rayaan Asghar/Jamie Barlow), and to everyone who took part in the day.  A special mention goes to Rishika Desai who was the only girl to enter the tournament and therefore didn’t have a girls singles event to take part in, but she competed with true fighting spirit in all the boys events.

Many thanks to the various volunteers who helped on the day. Emma Barraclough, Emma Cook and Dan Cook who helped Wendy with keeping all the matches on track, and to the Juniors and parents who offered to umpire games throughout the day.

A big thanks to Wendy Porter who organised the event and worked tirelessly on the day, but must have been just secretly raring to get away to see her newly born first grandchild who’d arrived at 6pm the day before. Congratulations Wendy!

Louise Forster

Roll of Honour

View all the Results

The draws and results for all events can be seen on the Tournament Website for each day:

  > Senior & Veterans events CLICK HERE

  > Junior events CLICK HERE

2015/16 Championships

Reports by Wendy Porter

Senior Weekend

There were 45 players taking part in the various Senior & Veterans events held on 13th & 14th February.

Once again Daniel Moses was dominant, retaining his Men’s Singles title, only dropping 1 set on route, to Danny Ricks in the Semi Final, before facing team mate, Krasi Ivanov in the Final.  Krasi had previously defeated another team mate, Ian Cole in his Semi Final, who took 3^rd place, beating Danny Ricks in the play off.

This year we had doubled the ladies entry to 4, but unfortunately Ania, had to withdraw on the Sunday due to twisting her ankle on the Saturday (I hope it is much better now). We played a round robin in the ladies singles, and I am proud to say I retained the title, with Gwynne Penny coming second and Katie Shepherd 3^rd.

Due to the injury, the Ladies Doubles had to be cancelled, but the Mixed Doubles Semi Finals and 3rd placed play-off were played on Saturday.  In the Semi’s, Wendy Porter and Daniel Moses beat Ania Pytka and Steve Miller, while Gwynne Penny and Krasi Ivanov beat Katie Shepherd and Joe Barraclough.  Then, in the play-off, Ania and Steve beat Katie and Joe. Experience winning after a close battle.

The Final was played on Sunday, and the title was again retained by Wendy and Daniel, by beating Gwynne and Krasi, in 3 straight games.

The Men’s Doubles was started in 4 groups of 3 then went to Quarter Final Knock outs with Krasi Ivanov and Daniel Moses, comfortably beating Ian Cole and Steve Miller in 3 straight sets.

Saturday saw many different finalists, Allen Pack Beat Eric Holmes in the 60+, Henryk Ciechanowicz beat Richard Fifield in the Senior Vets, and Steve Miller beat Ian Cole in an exciting Veteran final, finishing 13-11 in the 5th set.

To ensure plenty of table tennis for everyone, all the divisional championships were played in 2 groups, before going to semi-final knock outs.

All the categories had more entrants than last year which was good to see - let’s hope the tournament keeps growing.  There were a few unavoidable withdrawals, through illness, I hope all those affected are OK.  But there were also a few no shows, without any notification.   

We also ran a new event - Porter's PIng Pong Pot - where players were provided with hard bats and played the first to 15 points, best of 3 games.  Another difference in the rules for this event is that the server can nominate one of their serves to be worth two points.  Eric Holmes and Paul Treadgold were two players who took to this event very well with some good wins, until being shown the true meaning of adapting to the game by non other than Daniel Moses.

Junior Weekend

On Saturday we ran the U11, U13s, Cadets Boys, Cadet Girls, and Youth Division Singles.

The Under  11s were played in 2 groups, with Jamie Barlow, Jude Sullivan-Barnes, Felix Thomis and Mo Cook, progressing through to the semi-final stages.  Jamie beat Jude, before putting up a brave fight against last years runner up Felix.  

The Under 13s were played in a straight knock-out, due to the high number of entries. (Had I known at the start of the few no shows, I would have played this in groups too.)  But as it stood, Felix dominated his half of the draw, although Zach Bonifacii performed well in two 4-setters against Joshua O’Donoghue and Mo Cook, before bowing out to Felix in the semi-final.  In the other half of the draw, 10 year old Jamie Barlow showed some fantastic play through his rounds, and in an exciting semi-final against new-on-the-scene Benedict Carless, who took the 5^th 11-9, and had himself had some very good games including a previous gripping match, winning 11-9 in the 5^th against Nathan Munns.  But the experience, speed and technique of young Felix was too much for Benedict.

This year we had 3 new young ladies for the Cadet Girls Singles, so they played in a round robin group. Shreeya Gupta, played very well, winning both her games and taking the title.  Rishika Desai and Elizabeth Dimitrova, had a good match with Rishika winning the 5^th game 12-10 and taking second place.

In the Cadet Boys Singles, we started with 8 groups, the top 2 in each group going through to the knock-outs.  After 14 games seeing some very good play from some promising youngsters, we saw team mates Tom Perkins and Joe Barraclough battle it out for the title, Tom winning this battle 16-14, 9-11, 15-13, 4-11, 11-9.

7 players entered the Youth League Singles and the games were played in a knock-out, with team mates Nathan Munns and Zach Bonifacii going head to head in a 5 game final, with Nathan winning 11-7 in the final game.

On Sunday we ran the Junior Boys Singles, Junior Boys Doubles and Under 21 Singles.

In the morning we played the group stages of the U21s Singles and Junior Boys Doubles.  There were 4 groups in each and again the top 2 in each group went through to the quarter finals of the knock out stages.  In the U21s semi-finals, Harry Munro won an exciting 4 setter against Jim McAllister whilst Thomas Perkins had almost the same scores against Nathan Munns.  In the staged final, Harry Munro beat Thomas Perkins  12-10, 11-8, 11-5.  

After playing against each other, Harry Munro and Jim McAllister then joined forces and finally came up against Nathan Munns and Thomas Perkins in the Staged Junior Boys Doubles Finals.  After both pairings dominating there groups and play-off games, they had a very good final, with Harry and Jim taking the title 10-12, 11-2, 11-6, 12-10

In the afternoon, the Junior Boys Singles started with 8 groups, with the top 2 going through to the knock outs.  This proved to be a good day for the 4 boys as they met again in the semi-finals, but in a different order, this time with Harry beating Tom, and Jim beating Nathan.  Giving the staged final between Harry and Jim. Harry taking this title, 11-8, 6-11, 11-8, 11-5. 

Just like the Senior event, there were more entries this year in the Junior Reading Closed.  It was nice to see so many new faces, from both OLOP and Kingfisher.  The weekend went very well with some very good table tennis, and fantastic sportsmanship from everyone.  Many players were very helpful, stepping in to umpire when volunteers were asked for.

Some players that stood out during the tournament, and to keep an eye out for in the future are: Nathan Munns, Benedict Carless, Jamie Barlow, Jude Sullivan-Barnes, Shreeya Gupta and Rishika Desai.

I would like to thank all the players over the 2 weekends for making it an enjoyable event,  Sam Ricks for helping get the players to the correct tables, Didier for the fantastic photos he has taken (I hope everyone checks them out) and the many players and parents, who kept me going with cups of tea. 

Many thanks to Wendy Porter for arranging and running the events over both weekends.

2014/15 Championships

Report by Wendy Porter

Senior & Veteran Events

Once again, Daniel Moses managed to regain the Mens Singles title - after an exciting final with Sam Ricks.

On Saturday, we ran the 60+, senior veterans, veterans and men’s doubles. The ladies doubles did not run due to lack of female entries. As only 2 ladies entered, myself and Ania Pytka, the mixed doubles were straight to the final and played on Sunday.

On Sunday we ran the divisional championships in groups, the men’s singles and staged finals of mixed doubles, men’s doubles, ladies singles and men’s singles.

Throughout the weekend, we saw a lot of persistent play from the more experienced players. So much energy and stamina (wish I had it myself!)

The performer of the weekend had to be Melvyn Lovegrove, who played out of his skin throughout the weekend. Beating players ranked higher than him, and pushing division 1 players, Melvyn won both the 60+ and Division 4 titles.

Wally Allanson also had a good result in the men’s singles, beating Steve Miller, before losing to Joe Barraclough in a hard fought 5 games.

Yeqin (Philip) Zeng comfortably beat Sam Ricks to take the title of the Division 1 restricted.  He also had a very good win against Daniel McTiernan in the quarter final of the Men’s Singles, before Sam got his revenge in the semi finals. Sam then faced Daniel Moses in the Final, and took the first game, before Daniel came back to win the next 3.

It was a good tournament and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

WELL PLAYED EVERYONE.

Full details of all senior events are here: [Senior Events Results Sheet] 

Thank you to Sam Ricks for your help in setting up and clearing away, and to Didier for taking the  photos and videos.

Wendy Porter, Tournament Organiser

Junior Events

7 events were contested by 29 juniors over the weekend of 21/22 February 2015.  Jamie Liu won 3 titles, with Daniel McTiernan winning two.

Summary of Junior Finals

Under 11 singles: Jamie Liu beat Felix Thomis

Under 13 singles: Jamie Liu beat Felix Thomis

Cadet Boys singles: Jamie Liu beat Felix Thomis

Youth Division singles: Harry Munro beat Joe Barraclough

Junior Boys singles: Daniel McTiernan beat Gus Thomis

Junior Boys doubles: Gus Thomis & Laurence De Ste Croix beat Harry Munro & Felix Thomis

Under 21 singles: Daniel McTiernan beat Gus Thomis

Full details of all events are in the here:  [Junior Events Results Sheet]

Photos & Videos of Reading Closed 2014/15

- - can be found via this website

The videos are all high definition, but by default will not play at the highest resolution. You can increase the resolution at the bottom right of the video window if you wish to and if your broadband internet speed allows it.

You are free to download any photos you like. In general, they have been uploaded in the original high resolution.

Didier Garcon