Senior British League 2011-12
Majician Leaves Opposition in a Trance
Report for Weekend 2 by Graham Carter
Mayur Majithia proved his class by twice winning man of the match awards in the recent British League meeting at Greenway School in Horsham.
Playing for Horsham II, he picked up four wins out of four including a superb 11-6 against England No.120 Dan Kolesnik.
Mayur, from Pound Hill in Crawley, produced an awesome display of topspin attack to pave the way for Horsham’s 5-3 victory against third-placed Bristol Civil Service.
His team-mates Amila Thilakrathna, Marc Collins and skipper Graham Carter all contributed to the brilliant victory.
Earlier Horsham had hammered Sussex rivals Brighton City 7-1. Mayur, Amila and Mark Collins all notched up two wins each in this thumping.
Youngsters Collins and Dan Pound impressed over the weekend with Collins notching up six wins out of eight and Pound racing to the best win of his career by beating Sportingbet Guernsey IIs England No.15 junior Liam Robbilliard. The scalping enabled Horsham to earn a fine 4-4 draw.
Horsham suffered just one defeat, 7-1 to York Gardens and rose two places to fourth in the Division 4 South East and Midlands table.
Youngsters Excel
Report for Weekend 1
Horsham’s young players performed with distinction in Senior British League (SBL) at the first weekend of this season recently.
The first team playing in Division 2 in Ashford, consisted of three juniors and Rory Scott. Scott played poorly only winning two and losing to five players ranked below him but the youngsters had a good weekend. Danny Lawrence in his first SBL outing won five from eight and Daniel Barna and Alex Forshaw also did well with 4/8 and 6/8 respectively.
Lawrence had an impressive win over England no. 115, Billy Pegg (Woodfield) and another over Mossford no. 1, Kamil Hajdrych. Barna beat Fusion no. 1 Adam Gigli and Forshaw’s best win was over the experienced Mike Short of Woolwell.
Overall the team had mixed fortunes though, being on the wrong side of two 5-3 results on the Saturday, losing to both Fusion and Woolwell. Things picked up on the Sunday with a good 6-2 win over Woolwell and a 5-3 win over Mossford. The team is in 4th place, but still needs to play the top two sides.
The second team played in Division 4 at Horsham’s own Greenway venue. Unlike the first team which only used the minimum of four players over the weekend, the second team fielded seven different players. On the Saturday the team was Mayur Majithia (3/4 wins), Alex Morrison (0/4), Erik Van-Mol (2/4) and Mark Collins (2/4).
Mayur is a top player at this level, but he found himself understandably outclassed by England no. 26, Garth Kinlocke (Bristol Civil Service), but having had a very good win over Garth’s team-mate, England no. 108, Daniel Kolesnik.
Alex was unfortunate not to take a win over Graham Outrim (Ashford Brunswick), losing in the fifth. Junior Erik Van-Mol had a successful SBL debut, winning against Garth’s dad Mark and Jack Tubby (Ashford Brunswick). Mark Collins also beat Jack, but lost out in five to Mark Kinlocke.
On the Sunday Collins came alive. He won all four of his matches, including a top quality win over Anthony Kent (Bristol Table Tennis Academy), who is ranked 1500 points above him in the rankings. Kent beat Horsham blocker, Graham Carter 3-0. He also won a marathon against Bristol’s Thomas Jeffcott 8-11, 1-11, 11-9, 16-14, 11-9. Unsurprisingly he was awarded player of the match twice that day. Supporting Mark on the Sunday were team mates Amila Thilakarathna (2/4), Graham Carter (1/4) and Daniel Pound (1/4).
Amila is another player well equipped to excel at this level, but he had the misfortune of coming against a quality side in Bristol Table Tennis Academy. He lost 3-1 to England no.18 Jekwon Choi and also to Christoph Zickert, both of whom went unbeaten over the course of the weekend.
Daniel Pound had a good win over Jonathan Pearson (Waterside) and Carter beat Robin Honey. The team lost 6-2 to both of the Bristol sides, which occupy the two top spots in the league table. They drew with Ashford Brunswick III and beat Waterside 6-2. They are fifth in the league table.
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