Cicchelli takes singles crown

TABLE TENNIS: PAUL CICCHELLI has won the Oldham Closed Table Tennis Tournament singles title.

From an entry of 64, Cicchelli went one better than last year by beating four-times previous champion Darryl Meredith in the final.

He had earlier had beaten last year’s winner, Mark Ramsbottom, in the semi-final after surviving five match points in the fourth set before going on to take the final set game 8.

Meredith had beaten Mick Moir in straight sets in his semi-final.

The final went the full distance, with Meredith going two sets to one up, but the Cicchelli dogged defensive determination, mixed with explosive forehand hits, saw him through game 5 in the fifth.

Mark Ramsbottom teamed up with Andy Jackson to take the doubles title, beating Mick Moir and Khamal Hussain game 8 in the fifth.

The Veterans event attracted 27 entries from which Jeff Craighill emerged as the champion after beating last year’s winner Andy Jackson in another close final which went to the deciding fifth set.

Craighill had beaten Mark Ramsbottom in four sets and Andy Jackson had beaten Ian McLean, also in four sets, to reach the final.

Andrew Tarpey became the junior champion for the second successive year by beating Matty Evans in the final. In the semi-finals, Andrew narrowly beat Callum Jones while Matty accounted for Paul King in four sets.




Divisional Handicaps



Div 1 – Gary Newton beat Simon Hardwick, Div 2 - Liaqat Ali beat Andrew Evans, Div 3 - Ian Cockcroft beat Neil England, Div 4 - Jacob Reilly beat Joe Taylor.