Darren carves his way through field to take title

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The 2017 Club Championships kicked off with the Veterans’ Singles on Tuesday.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.