Cippenham’s trip to Derby Arena for the first weekend of matches in the Youth British Clubs League proved reasonably successful. Both teams currently sit second in their respective divisions.

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The Cippenham girls’ team are playing for the third consecutive year in the Premier Division. However, two of the original three local players are now over age and so replacements, one from Devon and one from Warwickshire, have been recruited to partner Mia Lakhani.

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Cippenham commenced the weekend with a great 5-1 result against Greenhouse, the London-based powerhouse of table tennis. Alyssa Nguyen, ranked fourth in the national junior girls’ rankings, and Charlotte LokChing Wong both won twice while Mia lost only when Cippenham were already 5-0 up. They fared even better in the afternoon match against Belfast-based Ormeau. Once Mia had dismissed the challenge of Grace Looney 16-14 in the fifth game after being two games down, and Alyssa had made the score 2-0, it was all Cippenham as their opponents failed to register a single additional game.

However, losses by Alyssa to England’s fifth and sixth ranked players, Eva Eccles and Hannah Saunders, tempered only by wins for Mia and Charlotte against Maja Wojcicka brought Cippenham down to earth with a 2-4 defeat in their third match against Grantham Academy.

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Sunday morning brought Cippenham’s second defeat, this time against divisional leaders London Academy. In a reversal of roles from the previous evening, this time it was Alyssa who won twice for Cippenham in the 2-4 defeat when getting the better of Sienna Jetha and Naomi Coker, ranked higher than her at two and three in the national standings.

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The weekend finished with a flourish with a 4-2 win over Draycott. This time it was Mia who led the way with wins against Millie Noble and Lily Walters while Alyssa and Charlotte contributed one apiece. The weekend finished with Alyssa having won seven of her ten matches while Mia and Charlotte won six each. Mia was rewarded for her efforts as she was acclaimed the girls’ player of the weekend, the second time that she had been honoured in this way.

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Meanwhile, elsewhere in the same Derby venue, the Cippenham boys’ team remained undefeated in Division 5, winning four and drawing one of their five matches. Sai Prasanna Kumar, immediately before his inclusion in the World Hopes Week this week, led the team with a perfect record of ten out of ten in his individual matches. Naturally, this feat led to Sai being adjudged player of the match in all five of his team’s matches. Three weeks earlier Sai had also been unbeaten for his team in the Senior British Clubs League and is therefore, as yet, undefeated while playing for Cippenham this season. His teammates, brother Bharath Prasanna Kumar and Louis Alexander weighed in with five wins each.

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The weekend began with a 4-2 victory over Brittania Ipswich. Louis and Bharath both defeated Hamish Cookson to add to the two matches won by Sai. Exactly the same formula was applied to the afternoon match with Joola Plymouth 2. The Saturday evening match saw Cippenham go one better with a 5-1 victory over Graham Spicer, the New Malden-based club, as a result of Louis winning twice in this match.

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The only slight glitch for Cippenham came on Sunday morning when they were held to a 3-3 draw by divisional leaders Halton. This was a very competitive match in which three of the five sets were decided in the fifth game and both sides claimed two each. The only encounter which ended 3-0 was Bharath’s decisive win over Lok Hei Lam.

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Sai’s perfect weekend concluded with another brace as he led his team to victory, 4-2, in the final match against Grantham Academy 3. Louis and Bharath  also won once each to leave Cippenham well placed in the eight-team division with two of the lower teams left to play next time around.