Ellenborough retained the Women’s Premier Division title and Topspin Fusion emerged from the pack to lift the Men’s Premier trophy as Veterans British Clubs League played to a finish.

Champions were decided in 14 divisions, with around 400 players due to be action at Derby Arena and satellite venue Draycott & Long Eaton TTC. 

Selected matches from the weekend were live-streamed and are now available to watch on demand at TTE.TV. Further selected matches will follow.

Remember, access to TTE.TV is free with all types of Table Tennis England membership. Click here to watch an instruction video on how to link your membership.

Women’s Divisions

Ellenborough held a four-point lead in the Premier Division going into the weekend and that proved more than enough of a buffer as they maintained their 100% record up to the end of the ninth match, only losing to their nearest challengers, Foresters, in the final match.

Foresters had gamely clung on to the leaders’ coat-tails as both teams won all three matches on Saturday, including Foresters defeating Bribar Deighton 4-2 to pull clear in second place.

When Ellenborough defeated the same opponents 5-1 on Sunday morning, they were mathematically sure of the title, but Foresters at least had the satisfaction of defeating the champions in Round 10 – and it was by an impressive 5-1 margin as Gabriela Tankel and Dorota Borkowska both won twice.

Hurey Ahmetoglu’s defeats to both those opponents meant her 100% record in the division had gone – she finished with 14 out of 16 to end in joint second place alongside team-mate Sara Williams, behind Borkowska, who won all 10 of her matches.

IPS Tigers were another team to lose an unbeaten record when it did not matter as they won Division One ahead of Bribar Knighton Park.

With a three-point lead ahead of KP and also DOJO Card Terminals, Tigers made sure of the title by winning their first four matches of the weekend.

Knighton Park matched that record, including a 4-2 win over DOJO, but with Ipswich not in the mood to drop any points, the destination of the title was cleared up before the final round. Not to take anything away from KP’s 5-1 win over the champions, which included doubles for Teresa Bennett and Karen Smith.

Of the regular players, Bennett finished at the top of the averages with a record of 16 wins from 18.

Division Two was the division of draws – notably, Foresters III were unbeaten but won only two of their 10 matches. That was enough for second place behind Ellenborough II, who ended with five wins and five draws for a three-point advantage at the top.

Just to confirm the point about the drawn matches, five of the six matches after the eight-team league split finished 3-3, the exception Foresters’ 4-2 victory over Ashford.

In the match between the top two, which could not have affected the league outcome, Ellenborough came from 3-1 down to secure the draw after Foresters’ Christine Burke and Barbara Kearney had both come from behind to win 3-2.

The champions featured potentially the broadest age-range of any team, with Debs Barrow having turned 40 last year and June Nelson, who picked up some important wins on Weekend 1, due to turn 80 this year.

Gillian Lesh of Ashford topped the averages with 13 wins from 15 matches.

Northern Belles held a narrow lead over Butterfly Lilleshall Lightning in Division Three at the start of the weekend, but it was Lightning who prevailed by the end of the weekend.

Bells dropped a point in a 3-3 draw with Cippenham in the first match after the split, and it then finished 4-2 to the champions when the top two met in the final round – Lightning winning the final two matches after Linda Sanderson won twice for Belles.

Those wins put Sanderson on to 17/20 in the averages, just behind Lightning pair Clare Styles (12/13) and Zsuzsanna Kalman (13/15).

Men’s Divisions

Topspin Fusion’s unbeaten weekend sealed the Premier Division title, with a helping hand from Lilleshall and Central.

Fusion were third going into the weekend, two points behind leaders Ormesby and second-placerd Bribar Knighton Park.

Both teams above them dropped points in Match 7, Ormesby going down 5-1 to Lilleshall as Michael O’Driscoll and Paul Cicchelli took doubles, and Knighton Park being held 3-3 by Central – who led 3-1 before Niall Cameron and Chris Rogers rescued a point for KP.

Topspin then defeated KP 5-1 in the next round of matches, while Central did them another favour by holding Ormesby 3-3 – Adam Laws won the final match for Central 3-2 (11-7, 6-11, 7-11, 13-11, 12-10) against Andrew Wilkinson.

The title-decider was effectively in Round 9 and Fusion struck the first blow as Lorestas Trumpauskas came from 2-0 down to defeat Adam Fuzes 3-2 (8-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-5, 11-8). From there, they never looked back and won the next four matches, eventually winning 5-1 overall.

With Knighton Park held 3-3 by Draycott, it meant Fusion were two points clear of KP and needing a draw to make sure of the title. In the event, Fusion won 5-1 against Lilleshall Ormesby defeated KP by the same score to leapfrog them into second place.

Victor Guang Shi of Fusion topped the averages with 13 wins from 14, ahead of Central’s Jacek Koziarski who won 18 from the full set of 20.

C Jenkins Windows were unbeaten in winning Division One (Group 1), with a five-point margin over The Musketeers.

The runners-up were the only side to take a point off the champions, courtesy of a 3-3 draw in Round 9, and they came from 3-1 down to do so as Tim Dyson and Lee Horton won the final two matches against Gerry Campbell and Stewart Crawford respectively.

That defeat dented Crawford’s record and he finished with 18 wins from 20 – his team-mate Daryl Strong topped the averages with a 100% record from 18 matches.

Division One (Gp 2) went the way of Horsham Spinners, who stretched out of sight at the top thanks to a perfect weekend of five victories.

Horsham led by two points at the start of the weekend and extended that to seven, ahead of runners-up Foresters A, by the end.

Horsham won all five matches across the weekend either 5-1 or 6-0, so it is not surprising their players feature in three of the top five places in the averages, headed by the perfect record of 20 wins for Oleh Biletskyi.

Joola Plymouth were unbeaten champions in Division Two (Gp 1) and, as on Weekend 1, had four wins and a draw.

The 3-3 result was against Nailsworth Phoenix in the final round of matches, with Nailsworth coming from 2-0 and 3-2 down to take the point.

Had Nailsworth managed to win, the destination of the title would have come down to sets difference. As it was, Plymouth had a two-point margin.

Paul Whiting and Paul Giles were mainstays for Plymouth, both completing all 20 matches, with Whiting taking in-club bragging rights with a full house of 20 wins to Giles’ 18.

Wensum could not quite complete a perfect record in winning Division Two (Gp 2) by five points from Halton.

It was the runners-up who denied them a 10th victory in the final round of matches by forcing a 3-3 draw. Wensum led 1-0 and 2-1 but then had to come from 3-2 down to secure the point, Serafim Melo defeating Brian Hallsworth.

Wayne Mason was the mainstay for Wensum and his 17 wins from 18 put him top of the averages of the regular players.

Admiral Paws had a mixed weekend but still had plenty in hand in winning Division Three (Gp 1).

Boasting a perfect record from Weekend 1, Paws extended that record to eight victories by the end of Saturday, but were beaten by both Cippenham II and Draycott III on Sunday.

With the other teams taking points off each other, the champions still had a four-point margin at the top – and the leader of the averages among the regular players – Jaroslaw Chrzanowski winning 14 out of 16.

TableTennisDaily Vets leapfrogged previous leaders BATTS II to win the Division Three (Gp 2) title.

In a tight division which featured eight draws, only five points separated the top five teams. It came down to a shootout between the top two, with TTD holding a 1pt lead going into the final round.

TTD won the first two matches in the fifth as Peter Ives beat Zayd Mauthoor 3-2 (9-11, 8-11, 11-8, 14-12, 12-10) and Mark Ward overcame Keith Adams 3-2 (10-12, 13-11, 6-11, 11-9, 11-6). Scott Cooper’s win over Richard Hutchinson gave TTD an unassailable lead and secured the title – thought BATTS did come back to secure a 3-3 draw and finish a point behind in the standings.

Ward won 14 out of 20 but finished second in the averages behind Stephen Horton of Cutnall Green, who won all 10 matches on Weekend 2.

The 10-team Division Four went down to the wire as the top two finished with identical records of eight victories and one defeat.

The crucial match was on Saturday, when Ajax Wolvey beat Foresters E, the leaders after Weekend 1, 4-2. They were 2-0 and 3-1 up, though Wes Bush-Harris’ 3-2 (11-7, 12-10, 11-13, 5-11, 11-5) victory over Gareth Edmunds in Match 5 held them up before they completed a 4-2 victory which was enough to see them take the title on sets difference.

Bush-Harris topped the averages with 13 wins out of 14.

York Gardens lost their 100% record in Division Five (Gp 1) on Saturday morning as they were beaten 5-1 by Cramlington.

But they recovered to win their next four matches to take the title, three points clear of Loughborough Unicorn.

In the averages, both Peter Stahlman and Piotr Odelski of the champions won 17 out of 18 matches.

Guernsey won all five matches over the weekend, only dropping two individual matches, as they finished four points clear of Draycott IV in Division Five (Gp 2).

The champions won nine and drew one across the whole competition, led by averages-topper Phil Ogier, who won all 16 of his matches.