English Table Tennis Team U/16 Regional Finals
Last Saturday the boys played in the Regional Final which is for the last 16 teams in the country. With only one team from four progressing to the final it was always going to be a tough challenge especially with a couple of our players feeling unwell on the day and being placed in a very strong group which included the reigning champions who could name four England Internationals in their team!
Unfortunately, the boys failed to make the National Final finishing 3rd of the four teams in their group. They began with a 6-2 defeat against Ackworth School (Pontefract) which is home to some of the current England U/18 & U/15 squad and they proved just too strong despite two good wins for Nick & Chris Moustaka against the oppositions 4th ranked player.
In the 2nd Match it was another 6-2 defeat against Longfield Academy (Darlington) with Rhys & Max Davies gaining the wins this time with Rhys winning an impressive battle with his fellow England teammate form the European Championships a couple of years ago.
Our final match was against Sir Christopher Hatton Academy (Wellingborough) and we managed to win 5-3 – a double for Rhys proving decisive as Harry Griffiths notched up his 1st win at this level to complete a well-earned victory. Max Davies and Chris Moustaka were the other points winners in that match.
The boys should be proud of their achievements finishing 3rd in one of the 4 Regional Finals ranking them somewhere between 9th and 12thin the Country. We had the youngest team on the day and just couldn’t quite compete with two very strong teams, one of which is a centre of excellence for Table Tennis England! Even though Rhys is ranked in the top 30 Juniors (U/18s) in the country, they named four players all ranked above him and only an injury meant that a change to their team giving us a small chance – our next ranked player is over 400th in comparison!
