Cippenham's girls team made a strong start to their Youth British Clubs League Premier Division season

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Cippenham’s trip to Derby Arena for the Youth British Clubs League proved to be a successful one with both teams sitting second in their respective divisions after the first round of matches, writes Graham Trimming.  

Cippenham's girls' team are playing in the Premier Division for a third consecutive season, however, two of their players are now over age so replacements have been brought in from Devon and Warwickshire to partner Mia Lakhani. 

Both look like they'll be more than adequate replacements for a Cippenham team which began the weekend with a fine 5-1 win over 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 Lakhani lost only when Cippenham were already 5-0 up.

They fared even better in the afternoon match against Belfast-based Ormeau. Once Lakhani had dismissed the challenge of Grace Looney 16-14 in the fifth game after being two games down and Nguyen had made the score 2-0, Cippenham took control, winning all the remaining matches without Ormeau registering a game. 

Losses for Nguyen to England's fifth and sixth ranked players Eva Eccles and Hannah Saunders tempered Cippenham's expectations as they were beaten 4-2 by Grantham Academy. There were though wins for Lakhani and Wong against Maja Wojcicka.

Sunday morning brought Cippenham their second defeat of the weekend, this time to divisional leaders London Academy. This time it was Nguyen who won twice for Cippenham in a 4-2 loss. She got the better of Sienna Jetha and Naomi Coker, players ranked higher than her at two and three in the national standings. 

They did manage to round the weekend off with a flourish and a 4-2 victory over Draycott. Lakhani led the way with wins over Millie Noble and Lily Walters while Nguyen and Wong contributed one win apiece. The weekend finished with Nguyen having won seven of her 10 matches while Lakhani and Wong won six each. 

However, Lakhani was named girls player of the weekend in Derby, the second time she's been honoured this way. 

Elsewhere in the same Derby venue, Cippenham's boys team managed to remain undefeated through the first round of their Division 5 matches. 

They won four and drew one of their five matches with Sai Prasanna Kumar in good form ahead of his participation in the World Hopes Week competition this week. He led the team with a perfect record of 10 wins from 10 and was naturally adjudged the player of the match in all of his team's matches. 

Three weeks earlier Sai also went undefeated in the Senior British Clubs League event and is therefore, as yet, undefeated for Cippenham in competitive matches this season. 

His teammates, brother Bharath Prasanna Kumar and Louis Alexander weighed in with five wins each.

The weekend began with a 4-2 win over Brittania Ipswich where Alexander and Bharath Prasanna Kumar both defeated Hamish Cookson to add to Sai's two victories. 

They won their next match against Joola Plymouth 2 by the same scoreline while Saturday evening's game saw them go one better to beat Graham Spicer, the New Malden-based club, 5-1. Alexander won both of his matches in this one. 

Their only slight aberration came in a 3-3 draw with divisional leaders Halton on Sunday morning. Three of the five sets played were settled by a fifth game in a close contest. The only encounter which ended 3-0 was Bharath’s decisive win over Lok Hei Lam.

Sai Prasanna Kumar’s perfect weekend concluded with another brace as he led the team to a 4-2 victory over Grantham Academy 3.  Alexander and Bharath Prasanna Kumar also won once each to leave Cippenham well placed in the eight-team division with two of the lower placed teams left to play in the next round.