Table Tennis Canty wins seven titles in table tennis champs

Press, 4 September 1989, Page 24

Table Tennis Canty wins seven titles in table tennis champs

Canterbury players won seven titles and were runners-up in seven events in the New Zealand table tennis championships which ended at Timaru on Saturday. This success earned Canterbury equal top place with Auckland among the provinces for most points in senior and veteran championship titles.

Pam Shadbolt retained her over-35 singles title, beating Christine Cunningham (North Shore) 21-13, 21-11 in the final. She reached the quar-ter-finals of the open women’s singles, losing to fourth seed, Sharron Coad (Auckland). She was top seed with Thelma May for the over-35 women’s doubles, but lost in the final to another Canterbury pair, Lynley Barker and Kath Thompson.. Barker was runner-up in the women’s B grade singles to Auckland’s Luana Graham and reached the semi-final of the over-35 singles, losing to Cunningham. Shadbolt teamed with Canterbury’s Les Stewart to win the over-35 mixed doubles.

May, who was top seed in the over-45 women’s singles, lost in the final to Southland’s Ngaire Garrett but retained her over-45 doubles title with Auckland’s Barbara Jackson and was runner-up with Hutt Valley’s John Lelliot in the mixed doubles. May had earlier beaten Garrett in the teams contest. Stewart had a double success in the over-35 grade, teaming with Kevin Fogarty (Otago) to win the men’s over-35 doubles as well as the mixed doubles with Shadbolt. His singles progress was thwarted when he met the eventual winner and 1988 titleholder, David Chow (Hutt Valley), in the quarter-final. Chow beat the over-45 champion and 1987 over-35 champion, Bob Lassen (Auckland)

in the semi-final and Hutt’s Terry Murphy in the final.

Murphy was having his first national championship for 14 years and has been playing competition for only two months. He eliminated the second seed, Eugene Herman (Australia), in the other semi-final.

Karl Entwistle won the under-21 singles title, beating the second seed, Hagen Bower, in the final. He became the first Canterbury player to reach an open men’s singles semi-final for several years, losing to the second seed, Peter Jackson. Among those he beat were Murphy, Stuart Monday (Auckland) and Gary Traill (Otago). Traill had earlier eliminated the sixth seed, David Jackson. A former Cantabrian, Maurice Burrowes, made it to the quarterfinals by beating Bower, the fifth seed, before losing to the champion, Barry Griffiths. Stephen Lockhart was the other Canterbury champion, winning the men’s C grade title.

In the junior grades Lisa Astle teamed with Auckland’s P. Bowman to beat the top seeded Aaron Winborn and Barbara Dickey in the semifinals, but lost to Anthony Hubbard (Hutt Valley) and P. Garrett (Southland) in the final. Astle also reached the final of the under-17 girls’ doubles with K. Pitcher (Hutt Valley).

Samantha Palmer teamed with Karen Fox (South Canterbury) to reach the final of the under-15 girls’ doubles and reached the quarterfinals of the singles, losing to the under-13 champion, L. Leroy (New Caledonia). Palmer won all her matches in the under-15 girls’ team event to help Canterbury win the title.

She also finished runner-up

to South Canterbury’s Karen Wilson in the women’s C grade singles and won a trophy for the most competent junior girl umpire. Canterbury also won the veteran men’s A grade (L. Stewart and A. Alabaster) and B grade (H. Thompson and L. Freeman). The best of the other Canterbury teams was the under-15 boys team of Daniel Astle, Brent Maitland and Glen Foulkes, which was runner-up in> its grade. The veteran women’s team of Thelma May and Janice Stead was runner-up to North Shore, losing 2-3. May won both her singles. The men’s and women’s teams held their own in the A grade while the under-19 teams found the competition very tough. Results of the Canterbury Table Tennis Association’s winter inter-club competition, completed recently.— Premier: Avonside 1; A grade, Riccarton 2; A reserve, Hornby-Islington 1; B. Dallington; C, Avonside 1; D, Harewood; E, Avonside 2. Individual points leaders.— Premier, K. Entwistle, 98 per cent; H. Redmond, 87 p.c.; L. White, 73 p.c.; M. Hamel, 71 p.c.; P. de Boer, K. Duffy and L. Stewart, 67 p.c.; J. Baxter, 63 p.c.; W. Stewart, 60 p.c. A grade: J. Richards, 97 p.c.; A. Yee, 89 p.c.; Yaw Tai, 81 p.c.; A reserve: M. Rosevear, 88 p.c.; F. Kelly, 86 p.c.; A. Millar, 80 p.c. B grade (Wednesdays) B. Canton, 100 p.c.; M. Price, 93 p.c.; R. Louden, 85 p.c. B grade (Thursdays) E. Falgueirettes, 90 p.c.; A. Law, 79 p.c.; F. Chalk, 77 p.c. C grade: Margaret Miller, 100 p.c.; R. Anderson, 80 p.c., W. Burrows, 76 p.c. D grade: T. Atkins, 91 p.c.; J. Saxon, 76 p.c.; P. Keereweer, 67 p.c. E grade: M. Cummack, 100 p.c.; J. Adamson and D. Watson, 87 p.c.