NORTH?Hill’s Dominic Pipe was the surprise winner of the North Cornwall Table Tennis League’s Handicap Singles tournament at Budehaven Leisure Centre last Thursday night.

There was an excellent turnout of 25 players with players split into seven groups of three and one pool of four before the knockout stages started.

Pipe, who plays for North Hill D in Division Three, beat Helland A’s Ingus Abolnieks 19-21, 21-11, 21-14 in the final although he did have a 14-point advantage in each set.

Earlier in the night Pipe got through a group with Andrew Ward and John Gillin before getting the better of Shirley Luckhurst and Adam Osborne in the knockout stages.

Abolnieks beat both Anthony Ward and Ezra Jukes in Group C before beating David Sillifant and Hannah Luckhurst in three-set thrillers to reach the final.

The Super Veterans competition held for players born in 1961 or before was won as expected by Blisland’s Bob Thompson.

Thompson, who has a win percentage of over 90% in Division One, beat Martin Hynes in the semi-finals before beating old rival Dave Salisbury in straight sets to take the crown.

However, Salisbury will be left to rue letting a 6-1 lead slip in the first set of the best of three contest.

Salisbury had earlier negotiated his way through a group with Paul Seez and Mike Kinger, with North Hill B’s Kinger nearly getting the better of Budehaven A’s captain in a three-set thriller.

This Thursday sees the Open Singles, Open Doubles, Restricted Singles (Division 2 and 3 players only), Mixed Doubles and Ladies Singles tournaments held at Budehaven on what promises to be an action-packed night to bring the 2016/17 season to a close.

In other league news, North Hill C completed the double after beating league runners-up Bridgerule A 3-2 in the Division Three Knockout Cup final at North Tamerton Village Hall.

The game was effectively decided by Dave Aplin’s straight sets victory over Bridgerule’s number one player Alan Quilter, albeit Aplin had the rub of the green.

See next week’s Post for a full-round up of the season finale and whether Blisland could manage the two points required against North Hill to win the Division One title.