Rhys Lightning Proves Unstoppable at Recent Tournaments

There has been some fantastic news for Rhys Davies (Year 6) who has been selected to play Table Tennis for Lancashire on the 28th November. He will also play matches against Durham and Lincolnshire on the same day. Rhys will be part of a team of five (three boys and two girls) in this junior competition which consists of players under the age of 18. As Rhys has only just turned 11 and is still in primary school this is a major achievement particularly as players qualify through trials where all the best players in Lancashire (and for this purpose, Cumbria) play against one other to produce a county ranking. Two teams are then selected purely in accordance with this ranking – Rhys is in the second team and is the No.2 player.

Further to this Rhys won a big tournament – the Blackpool 2* Under 13s which attracts some of the best players from the Northern half of the country. In the final Rhys beat a fellow England International, Tom Rayner (Durham) in a titanic five set battle. They had a similar match earlier in the day in the Under 15 category where Rhys won by the same score line in the last 16. Rhys then beat the 4th seed, Kieran Wardell (Durham also) in another thrilling five set match before finally losing to the 2nd seed in the semi-final. Needless to say he exceeded expectations having never beaten Tom or Kieran previously.

This was a day after representing Southport in the Lancashire and Cheshire (Under 18) League where the team ended with wins against Manchester (4-2) & Preston (5-1) before progressing to a hard-fought draw against Warrington (3-3) with Rhys personally winning 4 of his 6 matches. The final day of this event will take place in January with Southport still in close contention as one of only 2 unbeaten teams.

Most recently, Rhys teamed up with his older brother Max and Year 7 brothers twins Nick and Chris Moustaka to win the Merseyside schools’ team competition on Saturday. They beat teams from Formby High 6-2, Caldy Grange Grammar School 8-0 before beating Range High in the final 6-2. They will now go on to represent Merseyside at the Zone finals in Blackburn at the end of January.