PREMIER / DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 16
Published 11/02/2024 at 16:52:42 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER TITANS TIGHTEN TITLE GRIP
Mk Titans enjoyed a fruitful fortnight, catching up on their one outstanding fixture as well as week 16's scheduled match. Both massive 9-1 wins that leaves them as firm favourites for the coveted League Championship title. First off for the near invincible Craig Brown, Guy Sparrow and Nick Howard team was a meeting with 4th placed Greenleys Warriors, who started well with a Ricky Taiwo win over Guy. But then it was all one way Titan traffic as the talented trio hoovered up the remaining sets against Ricky, Darren Ward and Ameya Phatak.
Same again in the week 16 fixture against 5th placed Leighton Buzzard Generations, with the match opening with a Guy Sparrow loss, this time to Tim Cheek, and Titans sweeping up the rest. Pick of the sets was a Craig Brown win over Hakan Karaaagac from two games down to win 11-9 in the 5th. Div 1 sub Mateusz Browarnik was the other Generations player. 10 points clear of the field, the title’s theIr's to lose now.
Warriors won 8-2 in their scheduled fixture against club-mates Glory. Hat-tricks here for Ameya (in straight games too) and Ricky plus a single from Darren Ward. Ian Brown and Iain Lindsay both beat Darren (Ian B. 12-10 in the 5th). Zero for Jacob Midson.
Meanwhile, the two other title contenders were taking sets from each other with the MK Spinners’ regulars Alan Cherry, Jecu Aurelian and Gary Jones running out 7-3 winners over a s Greenleys Monarchs team that paraded their newly crowned World Ping Pong Senior (over 55s) champion, Dave Tiplady, for the first time since he won the title in Mexico last month, here featuring alongside Martin Hall and Alex Meade. A great night though for Alan and Jecu, winning all Spinners sets between them, and taking out Dave’s unbeaten record in the process.
Monarchs brought their fixture backlog up to date with a win over a beleaguered MK Sasaki side on 7 Feb. Another defeat for Dave Tiplady, this time to Michael Wilkins, was the only loss in a 9-1 win. Dave Beddall and Tomek Nowakowski were the other Monarchs while William Kit Liang made up the 2-man Sasaki team.
Finally, in the bottom of the table clash last week MK Phoenix avoided defeat for the first time this season with a draw against club-mates Sasaki, who were able to field a pair of Div 1 reserves, Jit Pitamber and Rupert Greyling, on this occasion, alongside regular Michael Wilkins, Jit and Michael shared the points between them with 2 singles each and the doubles. Zero for Rupert. The Phoenix hero was Ioan Constantin with a sparkling hat-trick while Gerald Ridgway and Mervyn Phillips both beat Rupert.
Player of the week : Ameya Phatak
DIVISION 1
DOMINANT CHACKMORE ‘SPOIL’ RUN OF 6-4 RESULTS
Half a dozen successive 6-4 results (and 17 in total in last 30 fixtures) of this highly competitive Division came to end on Thursday (8 Feb) with a 7-3 win for Chackmore Hasbeens over relegation strugglers Leighton Buzzard Van Hire – the match itself postponed for a week at Chackmore’s request. As usual, Bub Burman was the Hasbeen star with a hat-trick and a share of the doubles with regular partner Andy Whitehead. Andy (2) and Sam Willett (1) picked up the other sets for the victors. Van Hire’s scores came from Mateusz Browarnik (2) and Fabrice Spelta (1). Dave Broome was the other Van man.
In a basement tussle, MK Pumas beat bottom side Greenleys Princes 6-4 with Andy Smith outstanding, hitting a treble himself and sharing a doubles win (with Chris Belton). Chris (1) and Div 2 sub Keith Carrington (1) got the Pumas over the line on this occasion, Keith just pipping Gary Viner over 5 games in a crucial set. Saravana Kumar and John Stamp hit a brace a-piece for the losers.
My MK Topspin team squeezed out another 6-4 result, a win this time after a trio of defeats by the same scoreline, all down to the efforts of in-form hat-trick man Jit Pitamber, skipper Russell Penn (2) and a rare doubles win between them. Zero for me against a lively 3rd placed MK Sharks outfit of Rupert Greyling (2), Sarah Hudson (1) and Abhay Tijare (1). It could have been worse for Sharks but for an unlikely Rupert come-back from 2 games down and trailing by 10-6 in the 3rd game to deny Russell on his own hat-trick.
Topspin still head the table, helped in part by ‘hot on their heels’ Open University Primes not playing this week, their scheduled fixture with Leighton Buzzard Avengers postponed until 28 Feb.
Player of the week : Bub Burman