Richards gains No. 1 ranking

Press, 25 October 1982, Page 13

Richards gains No. 1 ranking

The Canterbury residential men's table tennis champion, John Richards, has made a dramatic leap to take the No. 1 spot in the provincial rankings for 1982. The 21-year-old Avonside club player, the winner of the residential tournament and the beaten finalist in the South Island singles championship this year, replaces a fellow Canterbury ' representative, Maurice Burrowes, in the top position. The selectors, Messrs Barry Radford, lan Urquhart and Brian Wilson, have ranked Burrowes third, behind Richards and Michael Hamel. The former New Zealand champion, Jan Morris, tops the women’s rankings. The promotion of Richards, ranked eighth in the province last year, seems to be partly a result of the few tournament appearances

made this season by Hamel and Burrowes.

Although Richards beat Burrowes at the South Island and residential events, Burrowes and Hamel in turn made strong claims for the top ranking.

Hamel convincingly won the Canterbury Open championship from a field which included all of the province’s best players, and only bowed out in the semi-finals of the South Island championship to the eventual winner, Richard Lee, of Auckland.

Burrowes won the Christchurch A grade tournament and had easily the best record of singles victories in inter-club play. He beat Richards on both occasions that the players met.

There was little to distinguish the respective merits of the top trio at representa-

tive level. Al the national teams’ championship in Wanganui, Richards won six of his 15 games, while Burrowes, who was affected by illness, won six of his 12 matches. Hamel was kept out of the event by work commitments. It seems that Richards, a stylish left-hander known for his erratic form in previous years, earned extra credit from the selectors by winning the South Canterbury and West Coast open championships. In the women's rankings, the leading junior, Monique Van der Aa, has surprisingly taken over the No. 2 spot from Pam Shadbolt.

Miss Shadbolt notched up some notable representative victories this year and was tenth in the New Zealand rankings. But her losses to Miss Van der Aa in the Canterbury residential and

open tournaments have apparently diminished her rating in the eyes of the provincial selectors.

The senior rankings, with last year's placings in brackets, are:

Men —J. Richards 1 (8k M. Hamel 2 (3). M. Burrowes 3 (1). J. Armstrong 4 (5). M. Prisk 5 (4). S. Dixon 6 (—). L. White 7 (—). Michael Burrowes 8 (6k D. Kain 9 (—). G. McCarroll 10 (—). Women.—J. Morris 1 (1). M. Van der Aa 2 (4). P. Shadbolt 3 (2). T. May 4 (3), S. Mayes 5 (-). J. Cotter 6 (6). K. Thompson 7 (7), H. Beumelburg 8 (—). J. Lee 9 (-), M. Millar 10 (-). Junior.—

Boys: L. White 1. G. McCarroll 2. N. Maynard 3. T. Hanrahan 4. K. Entwistle 5. D. Entwistle 6. S. Hooker 7. C. Skilton 8. R. Hume 9, R. Humphries 10. Girls: M. Van der Aa 1. S. Mayes 2, H. Beumelburg 3. J. Cotter 4. J. Gray 5, D. Beard 6. J. Harper 7. K. Hinds 8, J. Fisher 9. no tenth ranking.