Club Championships Day 1 - Veterans' Singles - 2 May 2017
Darren carves his way through field to take title
The 2017 Club Championships kicked off with the Veterans’ Singles on Tuesday.
Darren Brown carved his way through the field of 10 players, beating all three seeds en route to take the Veterans’ Singles title at the 2017 Club Championships.
However, it was not all plain sailing for Darren. He was given a scare in his first round group by Lee Wirkhani who led 2-0 before Darren upped his game, equalised at 2-2 and then stormed the decider. His win over Keith Hall was much more straight-forward but then Darren claimed the scalp of his first seed when he beat Elroy Hull 3-1 in four tight games, all settled by the minimum two points.
The other two seeds were progressing nicely through their groups. Graham Trimming fought back from 1-0 down to defeat Zsolt Varga 3-1 and won more convincingly against Ike Greenberg. Lawrence Harvey had no trouble in defeating both Brian Guilloud and Elena Tant 3-0.
The winners of the three groups then contested a final round-robin that would decide the ultimate positions. Graham started with a convincing 3-0 win over Lawrence and then Darren beat the same player 3-1. It came down to a deciding match between Graham and Darren to decide the destiny of the medals. Darren won both the first two games 11-9 but Graham hit back to equalise 11-5, 11-6. When Graham led 5-3 in the fifth game it seemed as if the tide had turned but Darren was not finished and clinched the title with another 11-9 win.
The Club Championships continues next week. Next up: Junior Singles on Monday (7:15 pm) and Open Doubles on Tuesday (7:40 pm). There is no pre-booking involved, members are invited to simply turn up and register by the times noted.

