Only one title left

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34130, 17 April 1976, Page 46

Only one title left

(By

BOB SCHUMACHER)

Wayne Adamson celebrated his twenty-first birthday a fortnight ago; on Monday he will be hoping to celebrate his first success in the men’s singles at the Canterbury Easter open table tennis championships.

It is the only Canterbury title to have escaped Adamson. He was favourite for the title last year, but was beaten in the semi-finals by Yee Chow Boi. The previous year Maurice Burrowes defeated him in the final. Adamson and Burrowes are seeded to meet each other in the final, and it will be surprising if the two nationally-ranked players do not fight out the championship. Burrowes, aged 20. will be seeking the singles title for ;the third successive year and

will not surrender lightly. He only played in half the rounds of the summer interclub competition and won 17 of 21 matches. Adamson topped the averages, winning 28 of 30 contests.

The two attacking players opposed each other once in the summer series and the result favoured Adamson in straight games.

Burrowes, seeded second, won the Canterbury residential title last year and was runner-up to the fourthranked New Zealander, Bryan Foster (Otago), in the Canterbury open. Adamson, the holder of both titles in 1974, played his table tennis in the North Island last season. The entry in the men’s singles is very : strong. John Armstrong, already the Easter champion on 12 occasions, inflicted one of the two losses Adamson suffered in the summer competition. His powers of concentration and reliable defence should test •his younger rivals.

The pen-grip Malaysian. Yee, the beaten finalist last year, is seeded fourth. If he can control his attacking shots, he is capable of extending Adamson again.

Harry Redmond, Bill Scott and Les Stewart, all compiled excellent records in the inter-club championship and they should justify their seedings and survive the round-robin section play. The eighth seed. Mike Warren, faces the stiffest test. Ranked tenth in the province, the Avonside stalwart played only one round last summer, although his awkward style will still make him difficult to beat.

Only three players have entered the women’s championship and it should be just a formality for the country’s top-ranked woman, Jan Morris, to retain her title against ■ a newcomer to the province’s Teagle Shield team last year. I Christine Kehoe, and the veteran. Thelma May.