Byng Hall Girls dominate 2 Star Open Byng Hall Table Tennis Club, Kent’s only Advanced level Premier Club, attended the Cippenham 2 Star Open tournament over the weekend in Slough Byng Hall players surprised the locals with almost a clean sweep in the female events.

On the Saturday the Junior events took place with the boys events first. Although Byng Hall has members from the UK, Sweden, Lithuania and Hungary, only a 15-year-old Adam Simpson of Cox Heath was representing the club in the junior category. Adam did well to get to the quarter-finals of the consolation event having gained a very useful unexpected win against a much higher ranked player to boost his confidence. Adam has only been training at the club for a year but has made great progress, entering only his second open event. The junior girls’ event was a different story. Jasmin Ould was clearly up for a fight in the U18 girls’ category. Jasmin has just turned 14 but this didn’t deter her from cutting the opposition down to size with her formidable forehand top spins and dynamic footwork. She made short work of her group winning all her matches with relative ease. As she beat the number one seed, Evangeline Collier of Essex who is currently No. 9 Cadet in the country, she had the privilege of rank and went through to the next round with a bye, leaving her the task of beating Charleigh Kirby of Middlesex, one of England’s 2012 potentials, in the semi-final stage. The final, Jasmin’s first in an open tournament, was a shaky affair as expected and Jas went two sets down but with immense resilience fought back to 2 games all before finally having to settle for the silver medal losing out 11-13 in the 5 th game to Fei Fei Pei of Surrey.

Sunday saw the start of the Senior events. Byng Hall’s hopes lied with Jurate Brazaityte as the No. 1 seed to bring home the gold medal. At the start of the last group of matches in the women’s event, run on a round robin basis, with two matches left to play, Byng Hall’s Jasmin Ould, Jurate Brazaityte and Charleigh Kirby of Middlesex have all had 5 wins out of 6. Jasmin repeated her superb performance of Saturday by beating Kirby in 3 straight sets with a devastating display of serve and third ball attack which left Charliegh reeling in her wake, Jasmin destroyed the Olympic hopeful 11-0, 11,4, 11,6. It then meant that in order to win the event Jurate had to win both of her matches which she did with confidence. Jasmin won her last match against Cippenham’s own Sue Hayes, who was in fact the No. 2 seed in the women’s event. This is a maximum points’ win for Jasmin which will catapult her up the senior women’s ranking list. Jasmin had to however settle for the silver medal again, having lost to Jurate earlier in the day – a clean sweep of the women’s event by the Byng Hall girls.