A productive but a very long day for 13 year old Charlotte Bardsley. The first group matches started at 9am and she was still competing at 9:30pm in the doubles final. So after more than 12 hours of competition in what was a very warm sports arena, she came away from Ponds Forge with 3 national finals medals to add to her growing collection. Charlotte who competed in both U13 and U14 girls singles, came eventually 3rd in both of those events. She got through to both quarter-finals stages without dropping a set but then had more work to do in the quarters, coming through both with good 3-1 wins.
England U11-14 National Finals at Ponds Forge
She lost out in a very tight semi-final to the eventual winner in the U13 and the same also occurred in the U14. In the doubles she made it to the final with her partner, Alice Dillon from Lancashire. This was the first time they had played together as a doubles pair and they quickly established an effective partnership, comfortably getting to the final where they just came short in the end.
National Finals Girls Medallists U13-14 and U 14 Doubles
Harry Fletcher competed in the U11 boys singles for his first time at the nationals. He was in a tough group and despite some great table tennis he wasn’t able to get into the knock-out stages of the competition this time.
Harry Fletcher, one of Woodfield’s up and coming young junior players was going through his paces at Woodfield this week in preparation for the U11-U14 England Nationals this weekend. Harry who is 10 years old, will be making his first appearance at this prestigious event which is being held at the Ponds Forge centre in Sheffield. Harry is one of the West Midlands players who will be battling it out in the U11 singles category. As he will face the challenge of some of the best young players in the country it will be a great learning experience for him.
Harry Fletcher
Another young Woodfield player, Charlotte Bardsley is also participating in the tournament where she will play in the U13 & U14 singles and will partner Alice Dillon from Lancashire in the U14 doubles. We wish them both success at the weekend.
Woodfield Junior players were in action at the Staffordshire County Closed event for Juniors held on Sunday 3rd May at Burton Uxbridge TTC.
After some excellent play, Jack Wood was able to claim 3 titles. He won the Cadet and Junior boys and then with his partner, Luke Gittins, he took the U18 doubles.
Jack Wood and Georgia Harris
Georgia Harris also came away with some silverware after she also put in a great performance. She claimed two runner up spots in the Cadet girls and the Junior girls.
Clearly all of the hard work in the training sessions at Woodfield is really paying off for these young players
Woodfield held a mini tournament for the Under 13 and Under 11 age group players at the club in January of this year. This was aimed at giving some of the younger players the opportunity to try out their newly learnt skills in a more competitive environment but within the familiar surroundings of the club. Sixteen young players competed in different group categories. Jamie Chen, Leo Martin, Akhil Viswanath and Harry Fletcher came away as winners this time around. There will be some more tournaments this year to give the players plenty of practice for when they compete in the cadet and junior competitions away from Woodfield.
Charlotte Bardsley now ranked 3rd in the England Cadets was selected to represent England in the Home 6 Nations competition held at Cardiff from 13-15th of March, 2015.
Charlotte was partnered in the Cadet team by Surrey’s Isabelle Joubeily. It was the first time both players were representing England in the Home nations competition.
In the team event, both Charlotte and Isabelle played strong singles matches. The girls only lost one singles match each out of the ten they played. They also had an excellent partnership in doubles, winning every time they went to the table. This meant that as a team they were undefeated and claimed team gold for England.
Charlotte Bardsley, Isabelle JoubeilyCharlotte Bardsley, Kate Whelan, Mia O’Reilly Egan
For the individual competition, the draw and then the way the groups played out meant that Charlotte faced Isabelle in the quarter-finals, when both players were hoping to only meet later in the competition. Charlotte got off to a blistering start opening up an 8-0 lead in the first end. Though Isabelle fought back hard, Charlotte was able to hold on with a 3-0 win and move into the semis where she faced Mia O’Reilly Egan from Ireland. Again Charlotte made a strong start and despite Mia’s pressure in the 3rd end, Charlotte came out on top with a 3-0. Another Irish girl faced her in the final, Kate Whelan who Charlotte had overcome in the team event with a 3-2 win after being behind 2-0. This time it was Kate who fell behind after the first end and it looked like Charlotte was on course for a double gold on her debut. However Kate levelled in the 2nd and used all of her experience to press home the change in momentum of the match, running out with a 3-1 victory to claim Gold. Charlotte had to settle for Silver this time.
Charlotte played in her first Cadet Masters which was held at Burton Uxbridge on 21/22 February 2015. She was ranked 5 out of the 12 girls in the competition. The Masters event is a big round robin format where everybody has to play everybody. By the end of the tournament you are playing your last matches against players who you are most closely ranked with.
On the first day Charlotte recorded 6 out of 6 victories and looked comfortable against all of her opponents, dropping just 2 ends in the 6 matches. On day two she managed 3 wins out of 5, losing only to the No 1 and No 2 seeds of the tournament. With a total of 9 victories out of 11, she came 3rd overall in the competition. Kate Cheer from Sussex won with Denise Payet from Middlesex coming second. To secure her 3rd place, Charlotte had to win her last match of the day against Isabelle Joubeily from Surrey. It was a tense match which swung back and forth. Isabelle made a strong start winning the first end but then Charlotte came back to create a 2-1 lead. Isabelle then took the match to the 5th, but Charlotte came out of the blocks quickly and raced to a 5-0 lead which proved too much for Isabelle to recover from.
Table Tennis England Cadet Masters 2015, Burton Uxbridge TTC
Charlotte was really pleased to get a bronze medal in the last Cadet Masters event in this format. She would like to thank all of the players and coaches at Woodfield for their great support this season.
On Saturday 27th September Woodfield held it first Senior Closed Championships in many years. Open to all Woodfield members, this event attracted 28 men and 3 ladies .
Matches commenced in groups of 4 progressing to the knockout stages. In the Quarter finals Steve Horton the No 1 seed faced Boguslaw Okonek and was pushed all the way winning 11 – 6 in the 5th game. In the second Quarter final Pat Glynn faced a determined and in form Nick Gilmour , with Pat scraping through in an even closer match winning 13 – 11 in the final game. Next match on was Jody Bevington against Steve Robinson. Robinson was rumoured to be in good form and this proved to be the case, with Steve causing an upset winning 11 – 4 in the 5th . Last Quarter was between Chris Tarr and Jason Thompson. This was a cagey match with play even at 1 game all with the 3rd game proving to be crucial, Tarr having chances to go 2 – 1 up, but he was unable to convert and lost the end. This proved to be crucial with the momentum swinging toward Thompson who took the win with an 11-7 fourth end.
At the Semi Final stages Steve Horton faced Pat Glynn and came through in straight sets winning 11- 7 11 – 5 11- 4. In the other Semi final Jason Thompson the no 2 seed faced the dark horse of the competition Steve Robinson who had already beaten the no 4 seed Tom Savary and the highly rated Jody Bevington. Could he do it again ? Not this time losing a mammoth battle in the final game 11-5 .
In the final, the match swung back and forwards with both players sharing the first 2 games. Thompson managed to secure a close 3rd game 11 – 9 . In the 4th game it was again very close until the end of the game when Thompson managed to get ahead and held a match point for the title at 10 – 9 . Steve Horton known for his dogged determination was not going down without a fight, coming back to win the fourth 12 – 10 . As throughout the match it was a battle to the end with Steve Horton winning the title 13 – 11 in the final game.
On the 22nd and 23rd of November, over 200 young players from all over England went to Preston to compete in the biggest Junior and Cadet event of the season. The event was held at the UCLAN sports centre (University of Central Lancashire)
On Saturday, the junior event took place and Woodfield player, Charlotte Bardsley who at 12 years old was hoping to improve on her progress of last year. She duly did that by qualifying out of her group, though she had almost topped the group when she just missed a match point by an inch against the number 5 seed in the 3rd end. Finally losing that match in 5, she took a lot of positives away from the match and with an impressive display of very quick counter hitting she knocked out the number 7 seed, which set up a match against Tin Tin Ho in the last 16. Despite losing in 3, playing Tin Tin was a great experience for Charlotte and she was happy to hit some winners against the world number 53 Junior.
On Sunday, Jack Wood and Joey Chen joined Charlotte in the cadet competition. Jack was at his first nationals and had a tough set of group matches. However he played very well with some long and exciting rallies. He had good battles against much higher ranked players and often took the ends to deuce. However in the end he was not able to get to the next round, but will have taken a lot of good experience from the matches.
Joey was placed in the number 1 position in group 18 and produced some good table tennis against some very spirited players to top his group. This set up a match against a highly rated young Yorkshire player. Joey was able to overcome the difference in ranking and ran out a relatively comfortable 3-1. However his next match in the round of 16 was going to be much tougher, playing the number 6 seed. From 2-1 down, Joey took the match to the 5th end, where he just lost out 11-9.
In the girls cadets, Charlotte was placed in group 6 where she topped that group with 3 wins out of 3, despite having to play a tricky match against the competition giant killer from Hull who then went on to take out the number 2 seed in the last 16. After a long day, Charlotte was eventually stopped in the quarter finals where she came up against the very strong number 1 seed and top English cadet. She has another 2 years left in the cadet competition so she is hopeful of progressing even further next time.
All three players from the club acquitted themselves very well in what was a very big national tournament.
