Welsh Selections

After the recent selection committee meeting Ferndale has another player representing Wales. Charlotte Slye has been selected to represent Wales in a development squad friendly international against the South West Region of England. Six boys are playing, including Community night regular Stefan Jeczalik, ad two girls so Charlotte has done well to be selected. Good luck to both Stefan and Charlotte. A report of the results in this match will follow.

Chris Griffiths will be representing Wales and Ferndale at one of the biggest events in the next week. Chris was selected to play at the UK School Games. This is an excellent competition with some of the best players from all over the UK attending. This will be a fantastic experience for Chris but also a very difficult one. Chris will be accompanied at the UK School Games by another player who has trained hard over he summer at Ferndale during the summer camps, Kiran Parry. Kiran will be representing Wales in the disabled section of the event. Kiran has attended the majority of the summer sessions and has been working very hard, he is hoping to attend the Community Nights once school starts again and he is hoping to continue to work with all the players at Ferndale. Good luck to both the boys.

Summer Training Report

Ferndale has had a very successful summer with several players being asked to attend national team sessions on a regular basis. The players that represented the school were Ethan Lewis, Chris Griffiths, Liam Winder, Seven Fawkes and Charlotte Slye. Coaches at these sessions have reported back saying the players worked very hard and put 100% effort in to the sessions. An "Internal" Tournament was held last week with 13 players playing and Ethan Lewis came out on top. Well Done Ethan, keep up the god work.
The sessions at the school during the day and the Community club have been well attended with many different individuals attending who would not usually attend the after-school sessions. Hopefully this steady increase of non-ferndale based players will continue to improve and will boost these club sessions for the local based players.

Summer Training Camps

Ferndale will be running two weeks of camps during the school summer holidays. Sessions will be on Tuesday the 26th, Wednesday the 27th and Thursday the 28th of July in the first week of the holidays and Tuesday the 2nd, Wednesday the 3rd and Thursday 4th of August. All sessions will run from 11am-2pm each day in the school.
The community club will run every Tuesday during the holidays at its usual time of 5-7 and in the Barn, so there are plenty of chances for Ferndale players to continue to play through the holidays.

Pontypridd Summer Festival Report

Ferndale had four players representing the school on Saturday in Pontypridd. Jonny Gregory had a fantastic competition and has sent me a report which I have attached below: 

The Pontypridd Summer Table Tennis Festival took place today, and was a great success with good spirited and high standard table tennis played throughout. The tournament attracted a strong entry of 40 competitors, all fighting it out to win their respective events, which included the beginners/improvers band, Band 1, and the Open.

The first event of the day was the beginners and was contested by 9 players including the youngest player of the day, seven year old Louie Evans! The event was eventually won by Ponty’s Callum Griffiths who beat Carmarthen based player Lawrence John in a tightly contested final.

The next event was the Band 1 competition, and was very open with many players capable of taking the top prize. There were some early upsets with the main one being 2^nd seeded Sharlene Williams missing out altogether against both Steven Fawkes and Port Talbot based player Kean Pak. In the last 16 there were no major upsets with all top seeds progressing safely through. It was a similar case in the quarters but with Stefan having to fight back from 2 sets down to beat Liam Winder. Dayna Pearce was also on a strong run getting the better of Steven Fawkes, to book her place in the semi-final.  No.1 seed Callum Evans and no.3 Jac both won their semi finals against Stefan and Dayna respectively to set up another encounter in their short but competitive careers! In the final Callum produced his best table tennis to win a great match 3-1. Jac threw all he had, but on this occasion Callum held out to take the Band 1 title. Sharlene went on to win the consolation event with a comfortable win over Ben Evans in the final.

The main event of the day was the open and with the good prize money on offer it attracted many top senior and junior international players! The top 4 seeds were Michael Marsden, Ryan Owen, Conor Edwards and Cameron Thomas. These along with the likes of Ethan Davies, Alex Prosser, Chris Griffiths, Nicole Hall, Ryan Oyler and Benjy Gregory made the tournament very competitive. All seeds progressed through their groups but with Cameron having to settle for the runners up position after losing out to Ryan Oyler, likewise Conor after losing out to the inform Callum Evans. Leading up to the semi final stage there were some great battles with Cameron winning against Chris Griffiths, Ethan winning against Ryan Oyler, Marsden winning against Conor, and Callum winning against Benjy. The four left standing included Marsden, Ethan, Callum, and Ryan Owen. The top seeds didn’t have the semi-finals their own way with Ethan pushing Marsden to 4 sets and young Callum playing very well pushing Ryan Owen in 4 close sets. In the final there were some great moments but Marsden had that extra level in the big points and took the match and the title in 4 close sets.

RESULTS:

Open

M. Marsden beat R. Owen (3-1)

Band 1

C. Evans beat J. Jenkins (3-1)

Band 1 – Consolation

S. Williams beat B. Evans (3-0)

Beginners/Improvers

Final Positions : Callum Griffiths, Lawrence John, Huw Standen, Alasdair Weir, Ayman Alkateeb, Macauley Morgan, Connor Priest, Vaughn Spragg, Louie Evans.

Well done to all Ferndale players for the hard work they put in yesterday.

End of E3 Sessions

Today was the final E3 session at Ferndale and it has ended a very difficult year for the players at Ferndale. Since Stephen left at Christmas the players have had a lot taken away from them and put through a very difficult period for training and development. Even though numbers at after-school have dropped and one-to-one sessions during school time have ended several players have continued to support the club on a daily basis and have been working very hard along with new players attending on a regular basis.

With the Community club now set-up, Ferndale has a great opportunity to take over as one of the top clubs in Wales. Ferndale is very lucky at the support it gains from the parents of the players as I cannot think of any other club in Wales that has such dedication. If this continues and numbers at this Community club continue to increase then this club has a very successful future ahead.

I think Laura Willaims, Ferndale 5x60 officer, deserves a massive thank you for making sure that Table Tennis in Ferndale continues to be a main focus point not only in E3 and 5x60 but through-out the school and now the community. I would also like to thank all the players and parents for sticking by the club through this difficult time and hopefully their faith will be rewarded in the near future.

Secondary British School's

Chris Griffiths and Ethan Lewis both were representing Ferndale and Wales at the weekend. Chris was in the A team with Ryan Oyler and Ethan in the B team with Callum Evans.
Ethan and Callum finished 6th out of 10 in the team event. In their group the played Jersey, England A and Ireland. The beat Jersey 3-2 (Ethan won two and Callum won one). The boys lost 5-0 against England with Ethan losing 9 in the fifth to the English number 2. Against Ireland it was another close match with the boys loosing out 3-2 (Ethan and Callum both won one). In the consolation part of the team event the boys played Isle of Man 3-0 with no sets being dropped by either player. In the 5th and 6th play-off the boys met Jersey again, who they beat before. The boys lost this time around the boys lost 3-2 with Ollie Griggs gaining revenge on Ethan and beating him 3-2.
Chris and Ryan had a 5-0 will against Isle of Man with both players not dropping a set. Next up in their group was Scotland A. This was a very close match with the boys winning 3-2. Blair Fowler won his two matches 3-2 and the boys both beat the Scottish number 2 3-0 so it all came down to the doubles, which the Welsh boys won 3-2. Next up were Guernsey B and this was another 5-0 victory with Chris dropping a single set in the whole match.
The quarter finals saw the boys meet Scotland B and the came out comfortable winners with a 3-0 win (once again no sets dropped). The semi final saw the boys face England A and the boys put up a great fight but sadly could not keep up the great results and lost 3-0.
There was a 3rd and 4th play-off match against Scotland A and Chris gained revenge over Blair Fowler by beating him in the 1st match to go on and win the match 3-1.
Well Done to Chris and Ryan for getting a bronze in the team event.

Next up was the singles event on the Sunday. Chris came out all guns blazing and started the day strong with a confident display to win his group, beating Ryan Courtie (IOM) 3-1 and Jack Bennett (ENG) 3-2. The quarter finals saw Chris meet Blair Fowler again and Chris again improved on his last result against Blair by beating him 3-1 this time. Chris then had to play Number 1 seed and England number 1 Helshan Weerasinghe, sadly Chris could not keep up the great form and lost 3-0. In the singles there was no 3rd and 4th play-off so Chris gained his second medal of the weekend.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend for both players and Ferndale. The boys will have learned a lot from this event and can bring back experiences gained to the Academy and help the younger players as well as themselves.
Well Done boys for a fantastic effort at the weekend.

Cippenham Festival

Liam Winder was playing at the above mentioned competition at the weekend. In the Under 14 Main event Liam reached the last 16. In the Under 16's Liam had revenge over the player who beat him in the Under 14's 3-0 in the group stage. He qualified for the Consolation event and reached the quarter finals. In the Under 18's Liam reached the last 16 of the main event but met the number 1 seed and lost 3-2. Well Done Liam in a very busy competition.