'˜King' Kong dominates derby night action at St Andrews club

With all five teams in action, there was only one defeat over which to draw a quick veil – with two victories and an honourable draw in the Division Two derby to highlight.

Sympathy was due again, however, to Truants, who were short of regular players Graham Wood and Alain Leger for their trip to Broughty Ferry to play Tigers.

Collin Bleak, in particular, proved a worthy stand-in, though, winning two of his singles, and Dave Goddard also pitched in with a win to give Truants their first points of the season in a 3-7 reverse.

Playing for his own team, Prospects, also at Forthill earlier in the week, Dave G had been in unstoppable form, winning three singles and combining with Jon Fraser to take the doubles as well.

Another couple of singles wins from Jon gave a finishing scoreline of 6-4 against Sputniks to get Prospects off the mark.

At the Victory Memorial Hall on Monday evening, Prefects had the advantage of starting 3-0 up when opponents Kings could only field two players.

With the form which post-grad student Michael Hahn is showing at the moment, this was too much of a handicap for Kings to make up.

Michael won his two singles and joined up with Peter Bladen to squeak home in the doubles (12-10 in the fifth game), giving the home side a 6-4 victory.

And so to the match of the week.

Smarting from two defeats to Swots last season, New Kids got off to an excellent start with a win for Kong Wan against Rob Brown.

Thereafter, the match score swung back and forwards, with neither side able to take more than a single-point lead.

Rob recovered from his early setback to post two wins, while Dave Beveridge added another two for Swots, and they combined to take the doubles.

In the meantime, Kong, with his second singles victory, and teammates Fabio Sani and Ken Falconer, each added a point to New Kids’ tally. With one tie to be played and the score 5-4 in Swots’ favour, the two players unbeaten in singles faced each other.

And, to continue the tone of the evening, neither could gain the upper hand.

Kong and Dave took the match to a deciding fifth set and still couldn’t be separated when they reached 10 all, and then 12 all.

In the end, it turned out to be Kong’s night as he ‘edged’ it 14-12 to earn the overall draw for New Kids.

Everyone present was treated to a great evening’s play and, hopefully, this could be the forerunner of many more exciting Monday evenings’ table tennis at the VM Hall.