Table Tennis Success
The Swansea University table tennis team have been taking the sporting world by storm over the last couple of weeks, smashing the Team Championship of Wales and The Swansea Open!
Team Championship of Wales
Swansea University Table Tennis dominated the Senior Team Championships of Wales this year.
The Team championships serves as the Welsh National League for Table Tennis with 6 Divisions of teams from all over Wales coming together to compete.
Division 1
Swansea University had three teams in this year’s championships. The first team, having been promoted from division 2 last year, saw club President Benjamin Lam, Abdulaziz Al-Hajaji, Jacob Evans, and William Avery playing in division 1.
The team sat top of their division at the beginning of the weekend, three points clear from 2nd place. The Saturday fixtures saw the team win 5-1 over Gwent B and Trinity, and a 4-2 win over second placed North Gwent. With results elsewhere, this meant that the team had secured the league title and promotion to the Premier division a day early. This did not affect the team, with 6-0 and 4-2 victories over Bridgend A and B, respectively. Not only were the team unbeaten all year, but Jacob Evans also went unbeaten winning eighteen from eighteen of his matches.
Division 2
Division 2 saw Angelo Robles, Ian Parkyn, Samuel Ashman and Henry Morrell involved in a dramatic weekend. The team started their weekend with two wins at 4-2 over Bridgend C and Cardiff City B before their re-match with Swansea League C ending in a 3-3 draw. Sunday fixtures resulted in a draw with Cardiff league B, with North Gwent beating Swansea League C allowing the University team to take a one-point lead in the last match with North Gwent. The weekend finished with the team winning the league with a score of 4-2, resulting in a promotion! Play of the team was Ian Parkyn, who has only lost one match all season.
Division 3
With Peter Daish, Freddie Hancock, Oliver MacAlister, James Leahy, and Azriel Ackerman playing in division 3, the team sat top of their division, unbeaten. Starting with a 4-2 win over Swansea League E and Gwent D, and a 6-0 win over North Gwent, the team only needed one point to secure the division 4 title! Achieving a 6-0 win over Rhondda C and maintaining their unbeaten status of a 5-1 win against Bridgend E, the team won the league!! Player of the team was Peter Daish, unbeaten all season!
The club also had players representing other club in the Premier division; high-performance sports scholar, Beth Richards, and her team Rhondda A, won the Premier Division while Jacob Young playing for Swansea League B, came 3rd. Alumni, Nancy Yeh, came in 2nd place with her team Swansea A.
The Swansea Open University:
Building from the success of last year’s Swansea Open, this year’s event saw the bar raised in a record number of entries but also player experience. The tournament welcomed its highest competitors of 104 players from all over the UK, beating last year’s 91.
University Results
Men’s Singles - We got a 1,2,3,4 with a further two players in the last 8.
Under 21’s - We got a 1,2,3 with a further three players in the last 8.
Women’s player Beth reached the QF before losing to Welsh Number 4 in the 5th.
An incredible few weeks for the Table Tennis team at Swansea University and we couldn’t be more proud of the team and their success! We cannot wait to see what the future holds for these students and look forward to supporting them all the way! Congratulations team.
Event Video here
Day 1 Photos: https://adobe.ly/3YrmRWG
Day 2 photos: https://adobe.ly/3RDgrSf