Parry Takes Cadet Boys Title as Griffiths is beaten in 2 finals!!!
On Saturday, Tonypandy hosted the Greenhouse Wales Open and saw a fantastic entry with competitors travelling in from Ireland to compete. 4 categories played across 12 tables were on show with U13 boys and girls and U15 boys and girls. There was some exciting table tennis played, and a lot of matches going to 5 sets.
U13 Boys there were no shocks in the group matches as the 1 and 2 seeds all qualified for the knockout stages. There were some great matches on the way to the final, which was contested by Chris Griffiths Ryan Oyler, both the 1 and 2 seeds for the event. They saw off challenges from Liam Winder and Ethan Lewis. All of these players are from Ferndale TTk, In a close and hard fought final, it was Oyler that came out on top.In the consolation event, Gerwyn Coleman of Tonypandy beat Dylan Lewis of Tonyrefail in the final. Both players have only been playing a few months and it was great to see both of them reach the final.
The consolation event saw Charlotte Slye play Jess Neck in the final, with Charlotte winning this final. This was another impressive performance from Charlotte, following on from her recent exploits in the Dragons. Jess Neck is another new girl from Tonyrefail, so again it was great to see new players getting to finals of these events.
U15 Boys
In this event, there were some unexpected wins for some players in the group matches. Stefan Smoliakov of Tonypandy seeded 3 in his group behind Steven Fawkes of Ferndale and Jac Jenkins of Tonyrefail. Stefan won his group and got to the quarter finals. Also, Ryan Howells of Ferndale, as 4th seed, came through in 2nd place behind Ryan Oyler. Dylan Bruford played extremely well to beat Sam Griffiths to send Sam into the consolation. In the main event, there were some extremely close matches all the way through to the final. Irish competitor Ciaran Kelly played out of his skin to reach the semi finals, beating Liam Winder and Ryan Oyler along the way. In the semis he faced the eventual winner Jack Parry from Tonyrefail. This was the match of the day, and would have been the perfect final. Both players went for it, neither let up and had the confidence to go for their shots when it was so close. Jack won this match deuce in the 5th. In the other semi, Alex Prosser from Tonypandy failed to live up to his number 1 seeding and lost to Chris Griffiths comfortably. This set up Chris’s second final of the day against Jack. With Jack still full of confidence from his semi final victory he cruised to a 3-1 victory taking the title.
Well done to Max Clews from Penlan Club on reaching the last 16 but falling short to Liam Winder. He showed great attitude all day and best of luck in the next event.
The consolation saw Jac Jenkins ease passed Sam Griffiths in the final with a 3-0 victory.
U15 Girls
With Lauren Cundy pulling out of this event, it only left 4 girls to compete for the title with a straight forward group of 4 round robin. This saw Nicole Hall cruise to victory without really breaking a sweat. The result was - 1st Nicole Hall, 2nd Laura Edwards, 3rd Caitlin Williams and 4th Lauren Slye.
And finally...Special thanks to Vidal Graham from Wembley High School who donated 2 rubbers to hand out as prizes for the runner up of the U15 boys and runners up of the U-15 boy’s consolation. Thanks to Robin Ashleigh, also of Wembley High School who gave out the trophies in the U13 category. Special mention to Mrs Fawkes and Mrs Winder, who got a bottle of wine for a raffle which raised some extra money for Greenhouse Wales. With the event being such a success Alan Monks, Stephen Gertsen and Stephen Jenkins have decided that another Greenhouse Open will take place after Christmas with a U15 and U18 category. Further information will be posted when the date is decided.
