Match Report
Last night we hosted our colleagues and "fellow users" of the Village Hall - Dawlish Aces. After a competitive, interesting and sometimes compelling evening of table tennis, Taverners were defeated by 7 sets to 3, an improved performance from our previous encounter with Aces but still a loss!
Dawlish Aces thoroughly deserved the win and with David Davies playing this time out, this made all the difference to the result with David's Player of the Match performance the highlight. He was taken to 5 games by both Martin and Colin but each time prevailed with a dominant final leg. Credit though to firstly Colin who fought hard to force the decider and Martin who made some brilliant defensive and attacking shots in making David play his best game. In my opinion this was compelling table tennis at its best and the set of the night.
At this point, I would like to digress a bit and give more of my thoughts about David. As a player, he is very difficult to contain if in the groove. Predominately playing on the backhand side, he hits anything that sits up even marginally and can also manipulate the blade to excellent use. I suppose Devid could be called a "one dimensional" player but this does not matter when you can play and win impressively in this way! Can David's style of play be described as "unique"? - probably not but it is so so difficult to contain at times when you hit such a high percentage of winners!
While I am in the mood, can just thank David for his immense contribution to Table Tennis in the SD&TTTL and Exeter Leagues over many years. Without him and of course Tony, what would we do without these volunteers?! MORE VOLUNTEERS ARE ALWAYS NEEDED but meanwhile lets all thank David and Tony for their efforts when we get the opportunity.
Back to the match! David was well supported by Mitch with two wins and Peter with one and an important point too. Mitch may have been helped by a higher number of nets and edges but that is table tennis for you! We Taverners all worked hard as usual and played well at times but on to the next match. They are quite a few left!
Thanks to Dawlish Aces for an enjoyable evening and good luck for the rest of the season.
Geoff.
As Bruce Lee once said:
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who had practiced one kick 10,000 times"
David Davies
Thanks for the thanks Geoff, you put in a massive shift as well.
Tony
Written by: Tony Halse
