There has been a resurgence in the number of young people attending the table tennis training sessions at the Wey Valley Tennis Centre on a Saturday morning writes Simon Scotchmer. 

For the first time in many years, they have been able to send four teams to the first round of the 2024 / 25 Junior British Clubs league that was held at the Waterside Table Tennis Club in Totton.

Two of the teams, Dorchester A and Weymouth A competed in Division 1 and two of the teams Bridport and Dorchester B competed in Division 2.

Ollie Storey, Sam Mellhuish and Daniel Scotchmer were reunited and competed as Weymouth A and their first match, which was against the Dorchester A team, proved to be the most difficult of the day.

The Dorchester team is made up of Toby Staddon, Finley Smith and James Roberts all of whom train with Matt Ware at the Dorset Table Tennis Centre in Christchurch. 

Roberts finished the day undefeated, but Scotchmer pushed him all the way in the opening match.

Although every game was close, Roberts came through to win the match 3-1. Storey and Melhuish also lost to Roberts, but they did very well against Smith and Staddon and the final score ended up being 5-4 in Dorchester’s favour.

Dorchester then went on to beat Waterside Flicks 8-1 and Waterside Topspin 7-2 and so after the first round they are currently sitting top of the Division 1 on 20 points, with Weymouth in second place on 16 points.

The two teams in Division Two also did incredibly well. The Dorchester Team of Atticus Wragg, Seb Baker and Finley Lennox-Gordon train on a Tuesday evening at Thomas Hardyes School, and as a consequence have also made huge improvements over the last year.

Wragg who earlier in the year won the league’s award of most improved player, ended up winning all his matches. Wragg has a particularly strong backhand which his opponents found very difficult to deal with. The Dorchester B team won two of their matches, but came unstuck against the Bridport Team. 

The Dorchester Team finished second and if they could win the Division 2 in the next round then that might mean that all four teams could find themselves in Division 1 for the final two rounds, which would be quite a coup!

If you are thinking of taking up table tennis or would like to return to the sport, head over to Weymouth and District Table Tennis League’s website for the latest details on training in Weymouth and Dorchester.