The young guns of Netts F have won their way through to the final of the Braintree Table Tennis League handicap cup.

Sixteen-year-olds JJ Calisin and James Howard and Tom Verrier, 14, will be hoping to make it four wins in a row for a Netts team after successes for the C team last year, E team the year before and C team (with a different set of players) in 2022.

Their win in the semi-final dashed Finchingfield A’s hopes of doing the double of the cup and the third division title. John Barrett, Peter Clark and Dave Punt were unable to overcome the handicaps of the younger players and succumbed 5-1.

Calisin, with a five-point advantage, opened the proceedings with a 21-19, 21-9 win over Punt, followed by Howard’s 21-15, 21-12 win over Barrett, playing off a 12 handicap.

Clark gave the home side some hope with a win in three games against Verrier (+6) but a win for Calisin (+6) over Barrett restored the two-set lead and this was followed by wins for Verrier (+8) over Punt and Howard (+10) over Clark to clinch their path to the final.

The other semi-final had to be postponed and will be played later.

In the league division two, Black Notley C racked up two wins over their clubmates, 8-2 against the F team and 6-4 over the D team.

Matt Stephenson won twice for the F team, while for the D team Alesha Ellis-Austin scored a good win over Rev Matthews but an in-form Mark Nolan remained unbeaten.

Leaders Sudbury Wanderers beat Netts C 8-2, with Richard Kemp unbeaten, while Rayne D took advantage of Rayne E’s inactivity to jump into second place with a 7-3 win over Rayne F, despite three straight-game wins for the F team’s Richard Whiteside.

Notley D’s defeat by their C team came after they had scored an 8-2 win over Netts D. They welcomed back Alan Billing for the first time this season and he played as if he had never been away, winning his three singles and the doubles with Stewart Ireland.

Notley E sprang a surprise with a 6-4 win over Yeldham Whitlocks A, three places above them. Jamie Brooks led the way with three wins.

Particularly commendable was his win over Roy Hooper (a player with a 74.4 per cent average before this match compared with Brooks’ 55.2). But equally commendable was Matt Brooks’ win over Doug Sanders (23.3 per cent versus 56.4).

Division three leaders Finchingfield A came up against an unexpected hurdle in Rayne G’s Alastair Brown. With only nine wins out of 45 behind him, Brown’s wins against Dave Punt and Ray Bradford came out of the totally unexpected drawer.

John Barrett was the only Finchingfieldian unfazed by Brown’s unorthodox style and took his three singles to lead the home side to a 7-3 victory.
Yeldham B had the misfortune to come up against Sudbury Strollers’ strongest team of the season, Richard Fifield, Richard Kemp and Peter Abbott, who were unlikely to give much away. Steve Willis’s win over Abbott was the only one that eluded them.

Yeldham got one more point against Netts F but must have hoped for something better than an 8-2 defeat against a team 13 points behind them. Netts F also had a 7-3 win over Rayne H.

An injury to Nigel Parmenter a few minutes into the evening hit Notley H’s hopes against Notley G. Parmenter doggedly finished the first set but was unable to continue and it was only Jill Canning’s win over Jacqueline Smith that broke the duck.

Tony Brown remained unbeaten for the second match running in Notley I’s 6-4 win over Netts E.