With a maximum entry of forty-five for the Senior Singles and only ten fewer for the Veteran Singles, the Cippenham Five by Two Senior and Veteran 1-Star Open made a welcome return to the calendar on Saturday after a year’s absence.

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As its title implies, the tournament has two separate sections which both begin with the players drawn into groups of five. From there the top two in each group progress into the championship event while all the others enter the consolation, thus providing plenty of table tennis for all during the day.

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The morning began with the Veteran Singles. The four seeds, Mircea Neagu, Phil Snelson, Hari Gehlot and Kevin Nicolls all won their groups even though Hari had to recover from 2-1 down against Steve Dorrell and Nicholls had to do the same against Dean Rose. However, waiting in the wings, unseeded because of his limited results in veterans’ events in his debut season, was Cippenham’s own Rob Hansell. Rob duly won his group as did Steve Joel and Akash Shah.

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Two of the seeded players, though, took their leave in the first knock-out round, Hari beaten over five games by Cameron Brealey and Nicholls three-straight against former Cippenham player Steve Buck. The quarter-finals pitched Neagu against Cippenham’s Steve Joel, Andy Frain against Brealey, Buck against Akash Shah and Rob Hansell against Snelson with the first-named all prevailing without too much of an alarm.

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The semi-finals were fairly clear cut with Mircea easily disposing of Frain and Rob winning three of the four ends against Buck in convincing fashion. The final, though was a real humdinger. Four of the five games required deuce points as Neagu struck first only for Rob to level after Neagu had led much of the game. The match then swung 2-1 to Neagu who had a match point in the fourth. However, Rob showed all his competitive fighting spirit to win that game 13-11 and then led 10-8 in the fifth but still needed a third match point in order to secure the title 12-10 after an epic and enthralling match.

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About half of the veterans stayed to complete alongside younger players to contest the Senior Singles. Mircea Neagu, beaten finalist in the Veteran Singles stayed and was again seeded first while Chris Lewis occupied the second seeded position, these two being head and shoulders ahead of anyone else in the competition. Kevin Nicholls and Kiarash Shaddel took up positions three and four. These four all won their groups as did Adam Klos, Doniyor Mahkamov Noah Byrne-Smith, Barliomiej Bys and Ewelina Sychta. Sychta and Byrne-Smith clashed in the second knock-out round with Sychta prevailing while the only other casualty at that stage was Bys, beaten emphatically by Rafal Bryk.

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The quarter-finals set up a clash between Mircea Neagu and Eweline Sychta, won by the top seed, while Bryk overcame Vlad Tipu over five games as did Klos against Shaddel. Lewis’ win over Mahkamov was more clear-cut. The semi-final ran true to form with the top two seeds both winning, Neagu over Bryk and Lewis over Klos, each in four games.

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The final was a classic with the speed of Chris Lewis up against the defensive qualities of Mircea Neagu. Neagu won the first two games only for Lewis to counter and square the match up at 2-2. Perhaps, that was s step too far as the fifth game finished 11-3 to Neagu who had come through a gruelling day, reaching both finals while playing a total of fifteen matches, yet still looked ready for more.

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There was more local interest right up until the end as the Prasanna Kumar brothers, who live withing walking distance of the Cippenham club, faced one another in the Senior Consolation final. England Under-10 champion, Sai, won this, beating his 14-years old sibling Bharath.