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Orkney table tennis club held the second of this season's junior tournaments last week at KGS. The group stage saw the winner of the last tournament, Alistair Hill coast through unbeaten to finish at the top of group 1, followed by Ian Manson in second place. Group 2 was similarly dominated by the runner up of the last tournament, Elias Dohrn, who was similarly unbeaten. The second place spot in group 2 was a much closer run affair.

Following a good performance by Alison Shearer, who managed a surprise 2:1 defeat of Steven Smith, Daniel Clewett, Alison and Steven all finished with 2 wins each. However, by virtue of having lost fewer games, Daniel made it through to the semi-final. Alistair Hill continued his unbeaten streak by defeating Ian Manson 2:0 whilst Elias Dohrn made similarly light work of Daniel Clewett. So the final proved to be a repeat of last tournament's final, and with Alistair taking the first game 11-9, it looked as though he was going to be the winner once again.

However it seemed that Elias was just getting into his stride and before long he had drawn level. Elias then took the final game easily winning 11-5. Congratulations to Elias and well done to all the competitors.

Results:

Winner - Elias Dohrn; Runner up - Alistair Hill; Third place - Ian Manson & Dan Clewett.

The junior members of Orkney table tennis club took part in a competition to round off the session before the Christmas break. The junior club has seen an influx of new members in its second year and there were a good number of entrants to contend the event. Alistair Hill, who has been attending the club regularly since 2005, won through his group comfortably without losing a game.

Despite being a relative newcomer to the club, Elias Dohrn has a natural ability for the game that enabled him to overcome the opposition in his group. However, in a competitive final it was the more experienced Alistair that came out on top beating Elias 2 games to 1. There were a number of other notable performances throughout the event, and in particular Dan Clewett and Andrew Clouston played some good table tennis to finish in a worthy second spot in the respective group phases. Well done to all!

Orkneys top player, Catherine Symons, has made the shortlist for this years Sportswoman Of The Year Award. Success in this arena is not unknown to Catherine as she is the 2005 recipient of the same award. After an impressive season so far, Catherine has scaled the Scottish Point List and is currently placed 3rd.

The entire Orkney Club would like to wish Catherine well at the event on Friday 10th November.

Bad news !! Unfortunately Catherine didn't win the award this year, however congratulations go to Kirsty Brown (Octopush) who did win !

Orkney's Sportswoman of the Year 2005 Catherine Symons enjoyed more success last weekend in Guernsey when she was part of the Scottish team competing in the British and Irish team and individual Championships. The teams involved were England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Catherine played in two of the team matches - against a strong English side where Scotland lost fairly easily 3-0, Catherine played No.2 seed Natalie Bawden who proved too strong winning 3-0. Her second match came against hosts Guernsey. Catherine had requested to play this game as she was keen to play against the reigning Island Games team champions. This proved to be a wise choice, as she put local favourite Dawn Morgan, the Guernsey No.1, to the sword 3-1 with a superb mix of hard attacking play combined with some incredible defensive resilience. Dawn has made the ladies singles final at the last two Island Games, so Catherine was pleased to have sent out the message that she will be a force to be reckoned with in Rhodes. The match ended 3-1 for Scotland - the first time they had beaten Guernsey. A result which clearly delighted Captain Liz Robb.

In the singles event, Catherine could hardly have had a tougher draw. Although confident of a result against Guernsey No.2 Helen Fooks, she also had the Irish and English No.1's to contend with, making hers by far the hardest group of the competition. Joanna Parker from England was a hard slog for her, beating her 3-0. Joanna narrowly missed a medal at the Commonwealth games in Melbourne, and gave Catherine an insight as to what standards are like at the very top of the table tennis world. A confidence boosting 3-0 win over Fooks followed before she played Ireland's top player Tara Fuscoe. In a superb encounter, Catherine very nearly caused the upset of the day before losing 3-2, only going down 11-9 in the last end. This was a tremendous effort but still meant that she narrowly missed out on the latter stages of the competition and the chance to become British Champion.

The Plate Competition later in the day gave Catherine yet more matches to expand her international experience. 3-0 wins against Isle of Man No.1 Maggie Mulhearn and yet another Guernsey player. Paula Le Ber took Catherine to the final where she played team mate Natasha Miliken from Glasgow’s Drumchapel Club. Despite the youngsters best efforts, Catherine was just too sharp for her and held her nerve well to win the British Plate title 3-1. This was completely unexpected but hard earned after an intense weekends competition, and Catherine was justly delighted to have come away with some silverware. Her season continues to go from strength to strength and with the next Scottish tournament only a couple of weeks away, she can look forward with the hope of securing more ranking points to help her maintain her place in the National Team.

Catherine would like to thank her sponsors W.H.B. Sutherland & The Harbour Fry for their continued support.

There were a good number of entries in the very first Junior Player Tournament which was held at Kirkwall Grammar School on Sunday 26th March 2006. The Junior section had only been up and running for two months and there was a good turnout for this tournament.

The tournament was played in 4 Round Robin groups with the top two in each group going through to the Quarter Finals. Those eliminated from the main tournament after the group games had an opportunity to compete in the Consolation Round Robin Group running alongside the main draw.

Four of the older and more experienced players were given a score handicap with Ethan Bews and Gordon Aitken giving their opponents a start of 5 points and Hollie Walker and Graham Linklater giving their respective opponents a 3 point start.

The top two winners in the 4 groups were as follows: in Group 1 was Alistair Hill and Gordon Aitken, in group 2 - Ethan Bews and Daniel Pickering, in group 3 - Graham Linklater and Alastair Walker and in group 4 - Hollie Walker and Ian Manson.

The Quarter Finals: Ethan Bews v Alistair Hill, Alastair Walker v Ian Manson, Hollie Walker v Gordon Aitken and Daniel Pickering v Graham Linklater. The semi-finals saw Ethan Bews and Ian Manson winning through their Quarter Final matches to play each other and Gordon Aitken and Daniel Pickering winning their respective QF matches to go through to the Semi Finals.

Ethan, despite the scoring handicap, swept through all of his matches quite comfortably. Ethan's strong stroke technique and movement showed through in all his matches. The second Semi Final (best of 3 games) saw quite a tussle between Daniel and Gordon. Daniel took the 1st game quite comfortably, although Gordon managed to hold on to take the second game. In the 3rd game Gordon (giving a way a 5 point scoring handicap) placed himself under even more pressure with a few loose rushed smashes allowing Daniel's steady consistency to take him through to the final. Ian Manson and Gordon then had a play off for Bronze medal position and this time Gordon's experience shone through.

Ethan and Daniel played some nice rallies with Ethan winning in straight sets against Daniel.

Final results:

Gold Medal -    Ethan Bews

Silver Medal -   Daniel Pickering

Bronze Medal - Gordon Aitken

The results of the Consolation group tournament were as follows:

Gold medal-Steven Smith, Silver medal-Magnus Pickering, Bronze medal-Steven Griffiths

Congratulations to all the competition winners.