Sarnians return with eight wins

GUERNSEY'S junior table tennis players produced an excellent performance at the recent European Youth Championships in Bratislava, Slovakia. Competing at the event for the first time since 1979, the Sarnians came back with eight wins in the team event.

'I'm really proud. The Guernsey team have gained a lot of valuable experience over the 10 days, not least the ability to stay focused and cope with heat during their games which was in 38C with no air conditioning,' said the Guernsey coach Becks O'Keefe.

The junior boys side of Scott Romeril, Garry Dodd and Adam Langlois won three matches out of seven.

They beat Azerbaijan, Malta and Montenegro to finish 32nd out of 40.

Oliver Langlois and Matthew Stubbington, competing in the cadet boys' event, won two matches out of nine as they took care of Kosovo and Iceland.

They ended up 36th, just missing out on 35th place as they narrowly lost to Azerbaijan in a closely fought match 3-2.

Cadet girls Paula Le Ber and Island Games star Alice Loveridge came home in 35th spot as they got the better of Finland, Iceland and Norway.

After five days in the strong team event, the Guernsey players then went on to play for a further five days in the individual, doubles and mixed doubles.

The individual competition saw some tough draws for the greens and they all missed getting into the main draw despite some strong performances.

The best of these came from Oliver Langlois as he just lost in the seventh game to Julian Indeherburg of Belgium, who is ranked 136 places above him in Europe.

In the doubles, the junior boys recorded a win over a pair from Iceland 3-1 to meet an Austrian duo but due to a mix-up with the timing on the programme, the Guernsey lads failed to turn up and had to give a walkover.

The Austrians went on to reach the final.

The cadet boys got drawn against England to lose in the fifth set by

11-9.

The cadet girls lost to Poland and to Bulgaria in another close match,

3-1.

'They have proved that Guernsey can now not only compete on the British circuit and record wins but the European circuit of which is another level.

'All players achieved a win at some stage of the event,' said O'Keefe.