Worthing Table Tennis Club hosted a new-format novice tournament to introduce young people aged under 15 to their first competition.

The novice tournament concept is to bridge the gap from the club’s juniors beginners sessions and 18 feeder school sessions introducing competitive play and a tournament environment.

This will then help young people develop not only their table tennis skills but with a match-play environment to deal with pressure, resilience and teamwork.

The Novice Tournament is specifically for players who have not played in a Table tennis England regulated event before, including British Youth Clubs Leagues and 1* local events.

The competition was held at Bohunt School in Worthing which is the home of Worthing Table Tennis Club. The courts were set up to match a national 2* event with a full umpiring set-up for players to practise their officiating throughout the day.

Club umpire Juan Da Silva was on hand to oversee proceedings and ensure matches were running smoothly. He also was able to give guidance on serving, receiving and match rules to the new competitors.

Players were originally sorted into five groups of four players to kick things off and then depending on their place in that group progress either into a main event group or a consolation group.

In Stage 2 there were four groups of five and the top four in each of the main event and consolation event took part in semi-finals and a grand final for the overall winners!

Our main event winner was Tom Coleman from Haywards Heath with runner-up Sidhanth Pai from Windlesham House School.

In the consolation event, Dylan Garner overcame Austin Stanley of Worthing TTC.

Medals were presented by Worthing Mayor Ibsha Choudhary. Big thanks go to Carl Walker, Worthing Community Independent Councillor for supporting the event and the work of Worthing Table Tennis Club to promote sport to young people in the local area.

If you’d like to find out more about sessions at Worthing Table Tennis Club visit www.worthingttc.com or follow us on Facebook or Instagram.