Posts in category: International Events

Following an initial defeat to Lithuania., the Butterfly sponsored Irish team grew in strength and defeated all of the other teams in Group J, including an impressive win over Armenia. Ken Strong is the ITTA Delegate at the Europeans and he described the performance against Armenia as “a particularly focused and awesome display by our young players, capably led by John Murphy and expertly coached by Peter Nilsson”. For Sam Hanley, National Junior Champion and Gavin Maguire, National Senior Champion at 18 years of age, this tournament has been a tremendous experience to date and both have grown stronger and gained more confidence since the first match with Lithuania. With four wins in a row, the Irish progressed to the Promotion Play-Offs.

First up in the play-offs was a strong Netherlands team. The Irish fought hard against their more experienced opponents, but the Dutch took the match on a 3:0 score line. That left the team with one match to secure promotion and perhaps gain revenge over the Lithuanians. With everything at stake, the Lithuanians surged into an early lead with Maguire and Murphy losing to Martinkus and Domeika respectively. The Irish did not lie down however, and  Sam Hanley produced a fantastic performance to defeat Udra and Murphy levelling the tie at 2:2 against Martinkus. That left Maguire in the pressure-cooker situation of having to defeat Domeika to secure promotion. This looked a tall order but Maguire produced some scintillating table tennis to take the match to 5 sets and was unfortunate to eventually lose the final set 12:10 having saved 3 match points.

Ireland then just missed out on promotion but showed encouraging signs and great battling qualities.

In today’s Singles, John Murphy lost in the First Round against Denmark’s Ka Sternberg 4:1. Sam Hanley progressed to the 2^nd Round with a 4:2 victory over Tentoni from San Marino. He will face Sweden’s Robert Svensson in tomorrow’s 2^nd Round. Gavin Maguire defeated Bosnia’s Alec 4:2 in an epic encounter

and will face Austrian Daniel Habesohn in tomorrow’s 2^nd Round. These are two fantastic results from Hanley and Maguire in their first Senior Europeans and we wish them all the best in their 2^nd Round games tomorrow.

In the Doubles event, Maguire is partnered with Finn Toni Soine – they produced an excellent win in the 1^st Round, defeating a Kosovan duo and will now face OVTCHAROV and STEGER of Germany in the 2^nd Round. Hanley and Murphy lost out to a Slovenian duo in the 1^st Round.

It was another successful UK Schools Games for the Ulster squad that travelled to Wales for this multi-sport event. In particular, Paul McCreery had a fantastic tournament, defeating David McBeath in the Individual Final to become UK Schools Champion. In the Team event, the Boys finished an excellent second, with McCreery again in top form, ably assisted by an in-form Ashley Robinson, Stephen Slater, Stephen Halpin and Neil Irwin. Robinson had also progressed to the last 16, but just lost out on a place in the quarter-finals to Sean Cullen, who he had previously defeated in the Team event. For the girls squad of Ashley Givan, Annalise Walker, Roisin O’Reilly and Emma Ludlow, the event was a tough one, but this young squad will have learned from the experience and are sure to challenge as they gain in experience.

Irish Junior Boys Paul McCreery from Ulster and Sam Hanley of Eastpoint TTC and Leinster have today caused a major shock at the European Youth Championships by knocking out the seeded Hungarian team to progress to the last 32. The Hungarians were overwhelming favourites coming into the game, with PEREI, Gergel(Ranked 28 in Europe) and PALATINUS, Martin(ranked 66 in Europe)  significantly higher ranked than the Irish pair. The Irish duo combined brilliantly however, to dominate their opponents who struggled to deal with the quality of McCreery and Hanley’s short game. The Irish took the game in straight sets against the former European Cadet Doubles silver medallists, winning 3:0(5, 6, 11).

Their focus will now switch to this evening’s last 32 game against the Swedish duo ANDERSSON, Harald and TRAN, Anthony. Again these players are ranked 34 and 21 in Europe and are part of the Swedish Team that made the Junior Team Final. Speaking about the result, Sam Hanley was thrilled with the performance;

“Myslef and Paul are really starting to play well together now and we are delighted with the result and the performance. We have watched the Swedish duo, who are obviously very talented players. However, they tend to drop off the table a little and we would hope to exploit this with our short game. We have got used to the O2 Arena now and think we have a fighting chance this evening”

ITTA Technical Director John O’Donoghue expressed his views on the duo’s progress, stating

“Paul and Sam have done brilliantly well to defeat the always strong Hungarians – to progress to the last 32 of a major European competition is a significant achievent for the boys – who knows they may yet feature in the last 16 Draw tomorrow”

On behalf of all Irish Table Tennis supporters, we wish the guys the best of luck this evening and hopefully into tomorrow.

Paul McCreery produced a performance full of determination and quality in progressing to the 3rd Round of the Junior Singles this morning in Prague. Strorming into an early 3-0 set lead against Kirstian Dalia of Serbia, McCreery looked to be in complete control of the match. But Dalea is significantly higher in the European rankings and began his comeback, taking the next 3 sets(8, 4, 8) to set up a deciding set. McCreery showed great resolve in the final set, winning 11-8 to take a surprise victory. He now moves into the last 64, where he faces CHODORSKI, Piotr of Poland who is ranked 6 in Europe. This 3rd Round match takes place at 6pm this evening.

Other results today have not gone the way of the Irish squad, with Hanley, Robinson, Nelson and Givan all knocked out of their Singles events at the 2nd Round stage to higher ranked opponents. No doubt the team will rally behind McCreery this evening in his 3rd Round match.

Ireland’s last remaining player in the Singles event in the European Championships, Paul McCreery, was knocked out of the tournament this evening following defeat by the Polish No.6 Ranked player Chodorski. McCreery lost the 1st set before levelling at 1.1. However, the Pole was too strong and McCreery eventually bowed out by a 4.1 scoreline. McCreery however, has another year left at Junior level and will look to improve on an already impressive performance in 2009 at the 2010 European Youths in Turkey.

In the Cadet Mixed Doubles 1st Round , Slater and Givan took the first game 14-12, after losing a 7-3 lead, Pitkewics and Kozma fought back to deuce, with the Irish holding their nerve under the TV cameras  to establish an early lead. The second set also went to the Irish, fighting back from 5-3 down to eventually take the set 11-9. With coaches Brett and Logue on duty, the Irish closed out the game in straight sets(11-8 in 3^rd set)  to progress to the 2^nd Round where they will face English opponents Lewis Gray and Tin Tin Ho. We will have further updates later this evening from the other Irish in action, but a positive start to the day for the Irish squad.