Congratulations to all Leeside players who competed in the Munster Classification in Kinsale.
Darragh Ruddy playing in his first Munster ranking competed really well and did his club and school(Cloghroe NS) proud.
In the girls events Leeside dominated. In the under 15 event Alanna O’Flynn came third playing some do e table tennis. There was a shock here as Thi Ly Cashman overcame Silke Heinen to claim first 3-1.
In the Under 13 girls Isabelle O’Sullivan came fourth ,Alanna came third . Again the final was between Silke and Thi Ly. This time Silke came through winning 3-0.
Liam Leisk gave a good account of himself in the under 13 boys playing the two finalists on the way to joint ninth.
The under 15 boys have been working hard and their results were good. Marcus Heinen came runner up in the plate and will learn from this match experience.
John Gould had some big wins notably Jake Adler in quarter final.
Sean Leisk was very impressive including two very fine wins over Jack O’Keeffe and Isaac Leahy.
Sean beat John in a great semi final. Winning in the fifth set. Sean lost the final to the ever present Ciaran O’Donoghue.
On day 2 the junior girls had a one, two three with Zofia Wawrzyniak, Thuy Linh Cashman and Julia Pikus taking these positions.
Marcus Heinen, Shang Lucey and John Gould played in the Junior Boys. Shang played some good table tennis on the day and gained much needed experience. Marcus had a very good match with Kevin Browne and nearly pulled off a shock win.
Marcus and Shang met in the plate with Marcus winning.
John Gould had another very good tournament. he started slowly in the group stage struggling with normally the strongest part of his game. The combination game.
After some sparring time with club mate Silke Heinen, john got this side of his game going. he had fine wins against Kevin Browne(Tralee), Conor O’Callaghan(BTTC) and a very good semi final win over Jake Adler(Cloughjordan). James Kelly was too strong for John in the final.
James Heap was our representative in the Under 21 mixed. James had some good matches during the day but need to tighten up serve/return at this level. This will come with practise.
The Vets had two representatives both coming joint third. Ben Haughton who had a ding dong battle with Sylvester Hadjuk to lose 2-3, and Gary O’Mahoney who lost to the eventual winner Philip Shaw in his quarter final.
The senior tournament went very well with Leeside players playing very well.
Gary O’Mahoney, Jennifer O’Sullivan and Shang Lucey played in band 2. Gary ended up as runner up. Jen and Shang played okay but maybe not as well as they are doing in training so we’ll expect more from both of them through out the season.
The Senior event had Marcus Heinen, Thuy Linh Cashman, Zofia Wawrzyniak, Pavel Vasilev and James Heap contending.
Marcus was in a very tough group with Colm Murphy, Brian Kelliher and Sylvester Hadjuk. Marcus competed well and hopefully will learn from playing such experienced players.
James had a very tougj group with eventual runner up Philip Shaw and the still improving Shane O’Connor. James had very good matches with both of them unfortunately on the wrong end of close results.He managed to beat Shelley Tobin.
Pavel had Ian Brown the evetual winner yet again. Ian proved too strong but Pavel won his remaining matches against Mair Kelly and Oisin Heirberich to get theough his group.
Thuy Linh had Alan Walsh and Conor Leahy in the group match. Alan was too sharp and beat Thuy Linh 3-0, thuy Linh then overcame Conor to come second in the group to qualify for the last 16.
Here Thuy Linh played club mate Pavel. Thuy Linh won through to meet James Kelly in the quarter finals. Thuy Linh lost to James, but it is remarkable that to first year junior girls are competing so well in the Open mixed singles.
Zofia has such a good day. She jumped up a level in this tournament playing very impressive table tennis. Zofia had a group with James Kelly and Nora O’Sullivan.
Zofia beat Nora 3-0. to set upa a top place match with James. This was a back and fro battle. Zofia led 2-1 and 10-8 with james battling back and saving 4 match point to win 16-14. James went on to win a close fifth set 11-9.
Zofia then played Shane O’Connor in the last 16. Zofia went to the fifth and was 8-6 up but Shane dug deep to win 11-9 in the fifth. Very impressive play. The standout performance of the wekend for me.
Leeside Table Tennis Club 