Spalding and District Table Tennis League held its annual Val Mackey Doubles competition last week.
This event pairs players together in a random draw based on the current rankings list; the top quarter with the bottom quarter and the second with the third.
This season in particular there were some very interesting pairings which showed itself in the results.
Thirty members took part and the 15 pairs were placed in two all-play-all groups playing best of three ends with the top two going through to the semi-finals.
For once, no pair won all their matches, but then neither did any pair fail to win.
In Group A, with eight pairs, the top two singles players attending drove their pairings to the top, or as one person put it ‘he played and I watched’.
Tomascz Dobrzyn and Mick Nurse achieved 6/7, only losing to second pair Radek Blaziek and Dylan Taylor (5/7).
Two pairs, Joe Beadle/Phil Knowles and Alan Fear/Andrew Hay, finished a further point behind on 4/7.
Other A scores: Jeremy Hitcham/Garry Wilkinson 3, Dave Gibson/Casey Nurse 2, and Gary Simpson/Reece Kerry 2.
In Group B there was a tie for first place with Phil Coote and Clive Shardlow tying on 5/6 with Guntars Briedes and Jonathan Black. Because the former won the match between the two pairs they were given the top spot.
Allan Lewis and Rod Bain were third with 4/6 having lost to the top two, but only missing out because they failed to win a third end deuce against the runners-up.
Other B scores: Christian Green/Stewart Duffill 3, Martin Green/James Coote 2; Richard Matthews/Jon Brady and Keith Davey/Jane Brady pairings tied on 1.
Semi-finals: Coote/Shardlow v Blaziek/Taylor and Dobrzyn/Nurse v Briedis/Black.
