The Britannia East Anglian Top 16 invitation table tennis tournament 2011/12 :
16 of the regions best known players, many highly ranked in the ETTA list descended on Ipswich at the Britannia club on Sunday 8th.January 2012 to take part in the County’s most prestigious event.
The first part of the event featured four groups of four players with all in a group playing each other with the winners and runners up going into band one and those finishing third and fourth going into band two.
Group one was regarded as the strongest group and Neil Charles showed his intent early on as he dispatched Malcolm Collins 11-1 11-1 11-0 in the quickest match in top 16 history. Tony West beat Andrew Dosher 3-0 in their match and to decide the winner and runner up Charles played West and ran out a 3-1 winner.
In group two top 16 debutant Mirek Pazdzior played a thriller with Andrew Warner and caused a seeding upset winning 11-9 in the decider, whichmeant that Warner would likely have to win his remaining games to qualify, this meant beating the tournament number two seed and England number five lady Lauren Spink which most people thought wasn’t possible, however Warner played superbly away from the table and took the first leg, and had a slight lead in the second before Spink began to get the upper hand and led 2-1 Warner though rallied to win the fourth leg , but couldn’t contain the overall power of a lady clearly in form in the final leg in what was probably the game of the day. Warner had to hope Former Suffolk Junior girl Kelly Skeggs would beat Pazdzior to give him a chance of making band one and despite taking the third leg it was Pazdzior that progressed with Spink.
Group three was rountine for the top two rated players in the group Jake Collins and Anthoney Corbin as they both beat Richard Goodhand and Anthony Corbin 3-0, however when they met it went the distance which could have gone either way as Collins just edged out Corbin 11-9 in the fifth
In group four Ken Lewis took a leg of the number four seed Ryan Collins, other than that is was plan sailing for the groups top two players Collins and Martin Gray until they met in the last match, Collins twice led in legs but Gray showed grit and determination to force his way back and it went right to the wire as Gray edged home as winner with Collins runner up in a seeding upset.
The second part of the day saw players play three further games each playing for final positions from 1-16 in bands one and two.
Mirek Pazdzier’s reward for qualifying for band one was a quarter final clash with number one seed Neil Charles and as expected Charles ran out a comfortable 3-0 winner.
In the second quarter final brothers Jake and Ryan met and this produced another cliff hanger between these two as both players had a point to prove, Jake won the first 18-16 but Ryan responded well to easily win the second leg only for Jake to do the same in the next leg and go 2-1 up, Ryan though simply refused to give in and after easily winning the fourth both players refused to budge taking the final game to deuce where Ryan squeezed home against the defending champion.
The third quarter final saw two time champion Martin Gray win in three sets against Anthony Corbin while Lauren Spink was in impressive form to beat Tony West 3-0 in their quarter final clash.
The first semi pitched Neil Charles against Ryan Collins and with Charles having won easily in their league match in the week plus having never lost to his opponent, it was something Collins was looking to put this right. It couldn’t have started worse for Collins as Charles reeled off a number of loop drives from both wings to win 3 in the first leg, former Suffolk champion Collins though responded by producing his own power loops to take set two to five and then forged ahead to just nick the third end, in games four and five every time Collins looked to equate the scores Charles had an answer as he finally saw out the game 11-7 in the decider, howeverCollins emerged with a lot of credit for his efforts.
In the other semi Martin Gray took on Lauren Spink and found the going tough in the first game losing 11-2, however he re focused in the second and won convincingly to six and in a tough third set it was the Norfolk girl that edged home to lead 2-1, from here though Spink was in command as she took at the fourth set 11-5 to reach the final.
During the week Lauren had beaten Charles 3-0 in a league match and spectators were wondering how significant that might be
In the first set Spink was able to return the serve easily and play power shots to win 11-6, Charles upped the anti in set two to take 11-9 but found the going tough as Spink dominated in set three with her punching backhand, in set four Charles looked to have weathered the storm as he eased in front, but Spink clawed back the deficit to reel of a run of points to take the set and match and become only the second woman to take the title.
Scores from the dome :
Quarter finals:
Neil Charles beat Mirik Pazdzior 5 7 6
Ryan Collins beat Jake Collins -16 2 -3 4 10
Martin Gray beat Anthony Corbin 5 5 9
Lauren Spink beat Tony West 8 8 1
Semi finals:
Neil Charles beat Ryan Collins 3 -5 -9 8 7
Lauren Spink beat Martin Gray 2 -6 9 5
Final : Lauren Spink beat Neil Charles 6, -9, 4, 8.
3/ 4th Martin Gray beat Ryan Collins 9 6 5
5/6th Antony Corbin beat Jake Collins -10 6 8 10
7 / 8th Tony West beat Mirik Pazdzier 8 6 9
9/10th Andrew Warner beat Richard Goodhand-7 9 4 8
11/12th Andrew Dosher beat Ken Lewis -8 3 8 -3 4
13/14th Malcom Collins beat Kelly Skeggs 9 -9 9 8
15/16th
Martin Freeland beat Andy Mcguire 6 -7 6 -7 9
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The Britannia 2011 East Anglian Top 16 took place at the Dome on Sunday 23rd.January 2011.
There were four players appearing for the first time
including National ladies eighth ranked player from Norfolk Lauren Spink,
Kent’s Joe Kennedy who has been ranked in the top 20 of the English mens and top
10 veterans lists, plus Tony Reardon from Haverhill and Suffolk’s junior rising
star LucyZhu.
Also playing were Ryan and Jake Collins who are now
well and truly established in the English top100 and rising, plus the return to
form of old from Tony West who only last Friday had beaten former Scottish
International Ian Mclean at the Super league in Harlow.
With four groups of four, the top two players in each
group went through to the band one section and players finishing third and
fourth went into a separate section.
Group one saw top seed for the event Lauren Spink win
all her matches easily. This was the only group were there was a seeding upset
as Gary Young overcame his Ipswich league colleague Andy Warner 3-1, Warner
avoided a whitewash but was under considerable pressure as he came from 0-2 to
beat Tony Reardon who lost all his group games.
Group two was straight forward as to where players
finnished but some of the matches were of a very high standard. Andrew Dosher
gave Tony West some anxious moments as he led by a game and 10-9 before going
down 3-1, Andrew Holmes took a leg of number two seed Ryan Collins and Dosher
beat Holmes 3-0. In the final game to determine the winner and runner Ryan
Collins and Tony West played a five set thriller in which the youngster had to
delve deep into his armoury to win from 1-2 down.
Group three saw Former champion Jake Collins carry
all before him 3-0 and in the battle for the number two spot, Tony Ziqiri
overcame Fred Dove 3-1 while Junior star LucyZhu despite being beaten in
straight sets was benefiting from the experience.
Group four saw Joe Kennedy and Lee Barnes finish top
and second in the group and in their encounter Barnes had started the better
leading 1-0 but Joe ever cool under pressure came back well to level and just
won a tight third end before winning the fourth set. A little out of sorts on
the day Paul Broxton went down to Malcolm Collins to decide third and fourth
group place.
In the first quarter final Lauren Spink was simply
too strong for Lee Barnes, and Jake Collins overcame Tony West in much closer
circumstances both by 3-0. In the other half of the draw it was much more tight
as Gary Young again showed why a lot of top players struggle to beat him as he
came from 0-2 down to 2-2 against Joe Kennedy and never gave up in the decider
before going down 11-6. In the final quarter Tony Zeqiri made a spirited fight
back as he seemed out of depth up against Ryan Collins power but battled back to
2-2, inevitably Ryan came through somewhat relived.
Jake Collins was in awesome form and in his semi with
Lauren he just nicked a tight first set before taking the second slightly more
comfortably, in a close opening exchange in the third leg Lauren pulled ahead to
win but in the fourth it was Jake dominating the exchanges and it was clear his
game had improved during the year. Never one to give up Lauran battled for every
point but is was Jake who deservedly went though.
The second semi was youth over experience as Ryan
Collins took on Joe Kennedy. Ryan took the first two sets very closely and at
2-1 up seemed to be on his way. However, Kennedy used all his skill and guile to
hang on and somehow took the fourth leg. Ryan clearly ruffled trailed 1-3 in the
final set and but called on all his attacking shots to win the decider 11-5.
Before the final Lauren and Joe played for third and
fourth play off which Lauren won 3-1 in another entertaining match.
The two finalists were brothers Ryan and Jake both
Ipswich league players who live in the Stowmarket area and in front of a very
good crowd they put on a show that capped off a great Sunday of table tennis.
Ryan edged the first set at 9, but Jake’s composure was never in doubt as he
calmly responded by playing power table tennis in the next two legs and amid
amazing rallies the brothers put on a show feast that was everything good about
the game, no taking long time between rallies or trying to put the other off,
they simply went for their shots. Ryan slightly higher ranked than Jake trailed
1-2 and went for broke in the fourth set as his brother responded to the big
lead he had by fighting back to trail 10-9, Ryan though won it to set up a final
set. Ryan led 3-1, though from here it was how Jake responded and he played the
perfect leg to absorb most of what his brother could throw at him and play the
kind of shots most players can only dream about. Jake allowed Ryan just
one more point for a famous victory, one in which they both got huge credit, and
for the second time at age just 19 Jake was once again crowned The Britannia
East Anglian top 16 Champion and is still the only Suffolk player to win it.
Resuts from the dome
Quarter finals:
Lauren Spink beat Lee Barnes 2, 6, 2.
Jake Collins beat Tony West 8, 6, 9.
Joe Kennedy beat Gary Young 7, 7, -7, -8, 6.
Ryan Collins beat Tony Zeqiri 8, 3, -10, -8, 6.
Semi finals:
Jake Collins beat Lauren Spink 9, 7, -7, 8.
Ryan Collins beat Joe Kennedy 11, 8, -10, -10, 5.
Final:
Jake Collins beat Ryan Collins -9, 6, 8, -9, 4.
3rd and 4th
Lauren Spink beat Joe Kennedy 6, 7, -4, 4.
5th and 6th
Tony West / Tony zeqiri
7th and 8th
Lee Barnes / Gary Young
9th and 10th
Andy Warner / Malcolm Collins
11th and 12th
Andy Holmes / Andy Dosher (hard bat)
13th and 14th
Fred Dove / Lucy Zhu
15th of 16th
Paul Broxton / Rui Campos(replacement for injured Reardon).
Report courtesy of Andy Dosher.
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The 2010 Britannia Top 16 took place at the Dome on
Sunday 11th.April,2010.
Report
Courtesey of Andy Dosher.
With all entries taken well in advance of the event
it was one of the strongest and well supported in years.
The players came from Middlesex, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and
Lancashire.
With a round robin section of four players the top two players on games won and
lost went through to the championship section with the third and fourth placed
players going through to a separate section.
The seedings proved largely accurate in all the groups apart from a couple of
instances.
In group one Neil Charles was in cruise control and although he dropped one set
to Tony West he never looked like losing to anyone, West won the
all important encounter to decide who would also qualify by beating Steve Kerns
3-1.
In group two number five seed Matt Spiro came unstuck against big hitting Lee
Barnes who won their match in straight games. Despite the early set back, Spiro
gave tournament number two seed Ryan Collins a hard game and only just lost 11-9
in the fifth set.
In group three the number six seed Andrew Warner took out perhaps his biggest
ever scalp by beating Paul Cicchelli the player ranked 91 in the country in a
five set slog, however both player progressed winning their other games.
The fourth group was particularly hard as there were four players who
potentially on their day could qualify, in the end it was Jake Collins and
Essex's Keiron Lally that finished first and second respectively, from Tim Avis
and Andrew Dosher
In the second series of matches the main focus centred on the championship
section:
The first quarter final was undoubtedly the best game of the day, it featured
the number one seed Neil Charles and the third seed Paul Cicchelli, after taking
the first set in style Charles raced ahead in the second but after some
breathtaking returns from Cicchelli the game was all square, the match
eventually went to a fifth set and Cicchelli
just wouldn’t lie down again retrieving from all over the court forcing
Charles into mistakes, Charles though was extremely cool under pressure and
after holding a number of match points he edged home by the narrowest of
margins.
In the other quarters, Jake Collins was in top form to despatch Barnes 3-0, and
Andrew Warner and Tony West played out an open affair with Warner winning 3-1,
in the last quarter Keiron Lally took the first set off Ryan Collins but then
found out himself under the hammer losing the next three.
In the semis Warner who up until then had had a great day was somewhat out
classed by his county team mate Ryan losing comfortably 3-0, and in the other
semi Jake was beaten somewhat closer but also in straight games by Charles so
the final was between the number one and number two seeds.
Ryan had taken a set off Charles in the I&Dist.TTL
final a few weeks before and in a tight and exciting opening set lead by
a few points at the end of it.
Charles though with slick serving and deft touch had the power and armoury in
reserve to play his way out of trouble and edged it 14-12, frustration for Ryan
increased as he couldn’t find a way in during the second set and was outclassed
to 4 points.
Ryan showed his grit and determination in the third set and like the first end
he matched his higher ranked opponent in some breathtaking
rallies, unfortunately again at deuce it was Charles that did just enough to
secure victory in his first ever appearance at these championships where it
takes a very good player to win the title.
Scores from the dome
Semi finals: Neil Charles beat
Jake Collins 9 7 12
Ryan Collins beat Andrew Warner 5 9 2
Final:
Neil Charles beat Ryan Collins 12 4 11
3rd / 4th
Jake Collins W/O Andrew Warner
5th / 6th
Lee Barnes beat Tony West 7 5 -9 8
7th / 8th
Keiron Lally beat Paul Cicchelli 7 9 -9 -9 5
9th / 10th Elson
Costs beat Steve Kerns 4 11 13
11th / 12th Mathew Spiro beat Tim Avis 3 5 7
13th / 14th
Malcolm Collins beat Andrew Dosher 9 2 -8 7