Woodfield coach Chris Tarr created the opportunity for the junior players to participate in a winter training camp. Over two days, the players were able to train at a high level of intensity with a lot of support from several other coaches as well as Chris. This type of camp allows the players to develop much further with their skills than a regular training session would let them.
The coaches that Chris invited included Des Douglas, Richard Facey and Woodfield’s national cadet champion, Charlotte Bardsley.
Woodfield member Charlotte Bardsley came back from the Liverpool senior Grand-Prix with three winners trophies. In only her second senior Grand-Prix. Charlotte was undefeated in the Band 3, Band 2 and U21 competitions. Charlotte had to fight hard with several 5 set victories, a notable one was against the number 1 seed and Scottish Champion, Gillian Edwards in the semi-final of the Band 2. Charlotte came from behind, being 2-1 down in sets and then from 6-3 down in the 5th, finishing it 7-11. Charlotte won 16 matches out of 18 during the weekend, the two losses in the main singles draw.
Band 3 Winner, Charlotte Bardsley & Mia ORahilly Egan
The Senior Schools International Table Tennis Tournament 2016 was held at Limerick University in Ireland. The best players from Ireland and Great Britain qualified to represent their respective countries in this event through county and then national tournaments.
Charlotte Bardsley U14 Champion
Charlotte Bardsley started her qualification back in January, winning the Worcestershire schools title and then finishing as runner up in the England Schools national competition in April. This meant she was selected to represent England in both the U14 team and individual competitions.
England A Charlotte Bardsley (Kate Hughes NPC) Mollie Patterson
In the team competition, along with her partner Mollie Patterson from Norfolk, they were unbeaten in all their matches to claim the gold medal. Charlotte maintained her fantastic form in the singles and won another gold medal by defeating her team mate in a thrilling final. These two golds are added to the two she won last year when the competition was held in Perth, Scotland.
This weekends achievements have been a perfect preparation for her next tournament in July which is the European Youth Championships being held in Zagreb, Croatia. We wish her and Team England every success at that tournament
All of the hard work that young Woodfield player, Megan Jones has put into her training with head coach Chris Tarr, paid off handsomely at the weekend. Megan was representing the West Midlands at the Inter-Region Finals held in Kettering for U11’s. On Saturday it was the team event and Megan with her partner Erin Darwen won two out of three group matches. However on Sunday, Megan had an even better day and really showed what she can do by remaining unbeaten on the day, which saw her take the individual gold in the U11’s. In the final, Megan beat Isabelle Lacorte 3-0 (11,9 11,8 11,9).
This is a fantastic achievement for Megan in only her 2nd major finals event. Getting a Gold medal is a great reward for all the practice and preparation she has done in the past weeks and months.
This season there is a new competition for Cadet and Junior players called the National Cup. Players ranked 1-6 nationally are automatically granted a place and then the National Coaches select up to 4 more players to attend the round robin format tournament. Each match is also best of 7. Charlotte Bardsley had qualified for both cadet and junior events by her ranking.
The cadet competition was held at the WISE campus in Bristol. Charlotte was seeded two and over the two days of the competition won 7 out of 9 matches. Denise Payet won all of her matches and so secured the gold medal. Another player, Mollie Patterson, also won 7 matches so the silver medal was decided on head to head count back between Charlotte and Mollie. Since Mollie had won what was a very close match in the 7th end in deuce, she claimed the silver with Charlotte getting the bronze.
Charlotte Bardsley playing at Cadet National Cup
The competition then switched to the Junior event two weeks later at Milton Keynes. In this competition Charlotte was seeded 5th. Her first match of the competition was against the cadet gold medalist Denise Payet. Charlotte reversed the result of the cadet competition with a convincing 4-2 victory. She then played Letitia McMullan, a player she had never beaten before. Charlotte scored another good victory, this time 4-0. In the 3rd round she faced Mollie Patterson the cadet silver medalist and came back from a 0-2 deficit to make it 4-2 and three wins out of three. England cadet, Jasmin Wong was next up and again Charlotte played her best table tennis to make it four out of four with a 4-0 win. The last match of the day was against one of the top England juniors, Kate Cheer who had beaten Charlotte in the East Midlands 4* junior semi final. The sets were shared at 2-2 but then Charlotte exerted her control on the match and won the 5th and 6th ends, to make it an incredible 5 out of 5 for the day. With top seed Emily Bolton having a surprise loss to the 6th seed Gauri Duhan, this meant Charlotte ended day 1 in first position.
Day two started with a key match against Emily Bolton who was clearly fired up after her loss the previous evening. Charlotte found it hard to settle into the match and it ended with a 0-4 loss to Emily. However Charlotte knew that if she won her remaining 3 matches she was assured of silver and if Emily slipped up then Gold could still be hers. In the end, Charlotte did win all of her three matches including a strong performance against Gauri 4-1 but Emily also won her matches. This meant that Emily got gold, Charlotte silver and Gauri the bronze.
This is now the 3rd masters type event for Charlotte and each time she has come away with a medal.
Charlotte Bardsley with Emily Bolton Junior National Cup
Woodfield’s boys team had been fancied to do well in division 3B of the Junior British League. Unfortunately two injuries, one of them serious, put paid to any hopes they might have had of mounting a push for promotion.
With Joey Chen and Lloyd Taylor both out with finger injuries (the latter requiring two operations) a two-man team was always going to be up against it over the first weekend.
And so it proved. George Carroll managed to take the highly-rated Scottish number two junior Calum Morrison to five and Jack Wood played steadily throughout but it’s hard to give your opponents a two-match start in this format, especially as the division looked stronger than it was last year.
George Carroll at Derby Arena
To their credit, the two lads did pull off a surprise win against London Academy and, boosted by the return of Joey Chen, hopes were high for the second weekend. Joey marked his return to competition with an excellent win against Alex Tilley from Halton, the eventual champions. But after that, none of the Woodfield players really got going and a scrappy draw was all they had to show for their efforts from the second round of matches at Derby’s excellent Arena venue.
Derby Arena hosted JBL tournament
Two other Woodfield junior players were also in action at the Derby Arena.
Charlotte Bardsley playing for Burton Uxbridge 1 helped them come runners up in the Premier Girls Division. Charlotte scored a double over England no 1 cadet Denise Payet and was the only player who managed to defeat the highly rated Hungarian Junior, Kitty Korda, over the two weekends.
Luke Gittins who like Charlotte also trains at Woodfield, played for Wood Green in Division 1. Clearly the training with Des at Woodfield is really paying off for Luke as in the 2nd weekend he scored two huge wins. First against Luke Carter of Fusion who is over 200 places higher in the junior ranking and then another big win against Will Ibbitson of St Marys Hull who is 185 places above him.
Woodfield table tennis club helps players of all ages and abilities to get the most out of their table tennis. There are regular coaching sessions during the day and evenings. On Friday evening, between 6pm and 8pm, it is the advanced Junior session. These are players who are competing in tournaments and playing at County, National and International level.
The objective of these sessions is to give the players the chance for training at a higher intensity with specific drills to improve their technique.
The Friday session is lead by Desmond Douglas, who doesn’t need any introduction in the world of table tennis. Des has been coming to Woodfield for a number of years and has helped many of Woodfield’s junior players reach a very high standard. As well as demonstrating the skill at a very high level, Des has an amazing ability to observe players in incredible detail and then identify why a particular stroke isn’t being as effective as it could be. Des breaks the session down into multiple parts to keep players on their toes and working hard. For example a session could have, technical drills, serve and receive, high intensity drills, multi-ball and match play. Quite often the last part of the session is dedicated to specific physical exercises to help with footwork and agility.
During the session Des may take some players one to one to work on their technique using multi ball. Des will have noticed something during the group practice and will now be working with the player to improve that particular point. This level of attention to detail is really valuable and he has a great understanding of how each player is developing from week to week.
Woodfield encourages the young players to compete with the National Cadet and Junior League teams and also Junior British League. Players who train at Woodfield regularly compete on the national tournament circuit. The training and coaching that they receive at the club has enabled them to progress significantly towards their goals.
If you are a developing junior player that could benefit from coaching from Des Douglas and practising on a regular basis, please contact the club to see if it would be suitable for you.
Charlotte Bardsley who has still quite some time left in the cadets age category has now reached 6th position in the England Junior rankings published in November. Charlotte spent a lot of the pre-season away from home on training camps in England and Denmark. This has helped her have a real flying start to the season in the Junior competitions.
Charlotte Training at Woodfield
Charlotte Bardsley who has still quite some time left in the cadets age category has now reached 6th position in the England Junior rankings published in November. Charlotte spent a lot of the pre-season away from home on training camps in England and Denmark. This has helped her have a real flying start to the season in the Junior competitions.
She represented England Midlands at the Sainsbury school games held in Manchester, helping the Midlands team secure overall team gold. She recorded 100% success rate when playing Junior British League at Derby and was also a finalist at the Stockton Junior 4* event. With some good victories against higher ranking opponents she has risen from 15th to 6th in just 2 months of competition. Charlotte is also ranked 2 in the cadet age category.
All of the recent progression and improvement hasn’t gone unnoticed to the England team selectors and Charlotte recently had her first chance to compete for England in an ITTF Junior & Cadet world tour event at the Hungarian Open. Charlotte competed in the cadet age category and being still 13 years old, she therefore faced players up to two years older than her who already had a lot of international experience. The Hungarian Open is one of the largest events on the Junior circuit and attracts top players from all over the world. Charlotte recorded her first ITTF tour win against Serbia in the team event and then had several very close losses which went the distance, just failing to qualify to the main draw. However she gained some really valuable experience and was able to see the playing standard she will need to get to for success at international level.
Woodfield player Charlotte Bardsley travelled to Perth in Scotland as one of a 24 strong squad of England Schools players competing in the Home Nations International. Charlotte qualified for the England Schools team by virtue of her 2nd place in the U14 England Schools finals held at Tipton in April. She was partnered by Gauri Duhan from Hull in the team event who had come 1st. England fielded two girls and boys teams in each age category of U14, U16 and U18.
After a long trip up to the Bells arena, the players had to already start the team matches on Friday evening. With 8 teams competing in one large group and the format of 4 singles and one doubles for each match it also meant an early start and late finish on Saturday. England were playing in a bright orange kit with strong set of yellow lights so the pictures are rather yellow!
England Schools Girls 1 & 2 U14 Gold & Silver
Charlotte and Gauri playing Scotland 1
U14 International Schools Champion
England preparing for the team event
England 1 and England 2 U14 girls both made strong starts against Scotland 1 and 2, but then they had to play each other which ended up being a key match in deciding the medal positions later in the competition. England 1 won that match 4-1 and so went into Saturday unbeaten along with Ireland and Wales. After defeating Isle of Man and Guernsey, England 1 then had a decisive wins against Ireland (4-1) and Wales (5-0) which meant that they were sure of Gold going into the last match with Scotland 1. Similarly England 2 U14 girls with Mollie Patterson and Katie Holt were also now able to secure silver with their wins over Ireland and Wales. The final positions for the girls U14 were England 1, England 2, Ireland.
On the Sunday it was the individual competitions which followed a group and then knockout competition. All 4 England girls were seeded in different groups and duly won their groups. Charlotte was drawn to face Mollie Patterson from England 2 in the semis which won. She then had to wait almost an hour to find out who she would face in the final as the other side of the draw had many 5 set matches. In fact the last match of the whole tournament was to be Charlotte versus her team mate from the previous day, Gauri Duhan. This was a rerun of the final held at Tipton. Gauri had made a brilliant comeback from the brink of defeat in the semi-final where she overturned a 9-5 deficit in the 5th to run out a 15-13 winner against Kate Whelan of Ireland. She took that momentum into the final and took a quick first end. Charlotte fought back to level it 1-1 but then Gauri was able to edge a tight 3rd end in deuce. Charlotte regrouped again and was able to counter the heavy top spin from Gauri by taking the last two ends to 4 and 7 for her to take her first schools individual title.
Some great performances by all of the England teams over the three days of competition. Details of the full England results will be updated shortly on the ESTTA website.
