Fairley beats pool of players and sweltering heat to take top table tennis prize

Apr 28 2011 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

ROBBIE FAIRLEY blasted through the top players in the county to take the West Lothian Closed Table Tennis Open Championship at Bathgate Academy.

The Scotland-ranked junior was in red-hot form amid sweltering playing conditions, as club officials were unable to turn off the school’s heating system.

However, Fairley flourished in the greenhouse conditions, cutting down Dariusz Szymczak to size in an entertaining final.

Fairley had seemed to be heading for a straight-sets victory to take his first senior title after taking the first two sets but Szymczak showed great character to win the next two sets.

The match then swung one way then the other before Fairley clinched the final set and with it the title after scores of 11-4, 11-8, 8-11, 8-11, 11-9.

The early stages of the open competition were played in four large groups on a round-robin basis with the top two players going into the knockout quarter-final stages.

The first group comprised double champion and No.1 seed Lewis Hills and former champion John McCulloch along with a various top players including Andy Wyles and Drew McLaren.

By the last round of games Hills and McCulloch remained undefeated but both had great difficulty getting past lesser opponents.

At this point McCulloch then surprised Hills with a comfortable straight sets win to take top seed place in the quarter-final draw.

The next group was even more competitive with most games going the distance and, again, the No.2 seed, Robbie Fairley, was beaten by Kevin Milne after taking the first set.

In this group were players of the stature of Keith MacKay, John Swift and Aaron Cameron who made these two fight all the way.

The next group was more straightforward with the two seeded players, Szymczak and Kieran Boyle, qualifying without the loss of a set with Jim Stewart proving to be the best of the rest.

In the final group Barrie Hills, the Scotland over-70s champion, qualified without difficulty but in the absence of George Flanagan there was a scramble for the last quarter-final place.

In the end it was Iain Henry who won the day – though he had to dispatch his wife Liz on the way.

After so much group drama the quarter finals were a bit of an anti climax, with only one – which went to four sets – not being over in straight sets.

This round proved a step too far for McCulloch who fell to the much younger Fairley. Szymczak took care of the unseeded Henry while Lewis Hills returned to form to beat Milne. Yet another junior, Kieran Boyle, accounted for Barrie Hills in the only four setter.

In the semi-finals the pace cranked up yet another notch with the battle of the two juniors, Fairley and Boyle, and a tight tussle between Szymczak and Hills.

In the first encounter Fairley made his greater experience pay against his younger opponent Boyle, winning 11-6, 11-9, 10-12, 11-7.

In the other semi Szymczak looked the more powerful and mobile against the reigning champion Hills to win 11-8, 11-6, 13-15, 11-4.

But in the final the youthful exuberance of Fairley saw him pip Szymczak for the trophy.

Meanwhile, in the inaugural ladies championships the final was fought between Ros Beck (Torphichen) and Liz Henry (Linlithgow). This was a battle between an attacking Fraser against a defensive Beck in which the former had difficulty her opportunities.

Although Beck won in straight sets it could not have been closer at 11-9, 11-9, 11-9. Along the way both had accounted for Imogen Beck (daughter of Ros) who will soon be representing Scottish Schools.

In the absence of his usual partner George Flanagan, the No.4 with whom he has won the doubles for the past two years, John McCulloch managed to find a replacement in Davie Dall and they surprisingly made the semi final where they lost to Szymczak and Boyle.

In the other half of the draw Fairley and Mclaren also fought their way through to the final.

The more attack-minded duo of Szymczak and Boyle triumphed in an entertaining final, winning 11-7, 8-11, 11-5, 11-9.

In the junior event Fairley and Boyle both came through the groups with the loss of only a set for a re-run of the open semi final.

This time Fairley won in straight sets 11-2, 12-10, 11-8 for a senior/junior double.

The consolation event proved a lively affair, after all four seeds were out for revenge after being dumped in the semi finals.

In the first clash Jim Stewart proved too powerful for the veteran Dall and MacKay beat Wyles with surprising ease.

In the final Stewart surprised his more fancied opponent in the opening set but MacKay eventually won through 6-11, 11-7, 11-2.

The hard-bat competition proved popular as ever, as the sport returned to the days when bats were made without sponge. The games were played at a slower tempo, tactics are more cat and mouse and rallies much longer.

Among the early favourites were McCulloch and Hills who can both remember playing competitively with these bats, but they lost out to Cameron and Wyles respectively. Boyle gained some revenge for an earlier defeat against Fairley with a straight-sets victory.

The semis pitched Boyle against Milne and McLaren against Wyles – by far the most attack-minded player of the four.

Milne and Wyles made their way to the final, where Milne showed why he started as favourite by taking the title 11-9, 11-9 with a more tempered approach peppered with some forceful forehand hitting.

There was also a doubles competition where partnerships are created by ballot.

As chance would have it the top half of the draw looked the weaker but in the semis McCulloch and Kamil Szymczak (son of Dariusz) beat the women’s finalists Beck and Henry.

In the other half of the draw Szymczak and Swift proved too strong for Wyles and Graham Chambers.

In the final the only real chance the partnership of McCulloch and Szymczak had was if Szymczak took pity on his primary school son – but none was forthcoming.

That said, a deciding set was required in a 11-1, 9-11, 11-4 victory but it was a proud father who watched his son collect his runners-up medal.