With the introduction of the Under-11 event at the previous Worthing 1*, the increase in interest in the event was incredible, with a massive entry of 20 and players traveling from as far away as Dorset to take part.

The main event saw an all-Kent clash with Cleeve Parks park’s Isabella Xiao Xu overcome Oliver Wills, who had a good win in the semi-finals over top seed Liam Higgins. The plate event saw an all-girls final with Ishana Verma overcoming Julia Urban.

Alongside the Under-11s was the Cadet (U15) event. The Cadet girls’ was an all-Sussex affair with Aadrika Shibu overcoming Saskia Svoboda in a really tight group with Ava and Eve Muggeridge, With only one of the matches being 3-0.

The Cadet boys’ saw upsets galore, with unseeded Austin Ma coming through the field to take home the crown, defeating top seed Ben Willis in the quarter-finals and then Ollie Hensel in the semi-final, who had beaten 4th seed Dexter Barber in the group. Dexter then lost to fifth seed Hoy Wen Lueng in the last 16. 

Second seed Aarav Pahwa took his spot in the final relatively comfortably, only dropping a set to Zak Heap in the semi. The final went the full distance with Ma coming out winner.

The plate event came so close to an all-Isle of Wight lock-out, with Theo Lewis, William Eversham and Jye Lock all reaching the semis along with Alex Jomiru. The final saw Jye overcome Alex 3-0. 

As the morning events came to end, Marc Ghosh, a Worthing-based recently qualified Level 1 Umpire presented the winners and runners-up with their medals.

The afternoon kicked off with the biggest event of the day, the under-13s, with 25 players taking part. Unlike the Cadets, the results kept mostly to the seedings. The top seeded pair of Ben Wills and Joshua Freeman took their place in the final. Ben beat his brother Oliver in the semis, who had overcome Worthing’s Herbie Gregory earlier. Herbie had already beaten fourth seed Pranav Panchamuhi in the group.

Joshua took out Liam Higgins in the semis who had a marathon match with another Worthing player, Samson Koo, winning the last set 19-17.

The final saw a fantastic match swaying one way and another with Ben Willis coming back from 2-1 down to take the win.

The Under-13 girls’ saw both Isabella Xiao Xu and Julia Urban claim their second medals of the day, Isabella coming out as winner with Julia runner-up.

The Junior boys’ category saw a home final with Isaac Burgess overcoming team-mate Zach Heap in the final. Isaac certainly made life difficult for himself, losing his first group match, but thanks to countback still came out as group winner.

He then had to beat second seed Micheal Dean, who had lost to James Fryer in the group, to set up a semi-final with top seed Aarav Pahwa. Again, Isaac did things the hard way coming back from 2-0 down to win. The final saw a repeat of the group match, with Isaac overcoming Zach 3-1.

Kostiantyn Motovilin made the best of his unusual situation, having beaten Isaac in his first match he ended up finishing fourth in the countback. He took out Elliot Brackenbury in the Plate semis 3-1 before coming back from 2-1 down to beat William Evesham in the final, who had beaten Matthew Dyche in his semi-final.

A big thank you to Marc Ghosh for umpiring at the event and to Mirna Hawat for running the results, which were projected live on to the walls, in a bid to reduce the amount of paper used at the events.

You can find all the results and images in our tournament report here.

The next event hosted by Worthing TTC is on 4 May at their sister Club in Brighton. Find the entry information here or their website here.