ADRIAN Hough regained the Stafford Table Tennis Closed singles crown with a three straight sets win on Saturday.
In the annual Stan Edwards men’s singles Hough defeated Colin Burgess to claim his seventh title, the last achieved in 2007.
Both semi-finals at Burton Manor resulted in two closely contested matches which went all the way with Hough coming out on top against the up and coming Jake Westwood 8-11, 11-9, 5- 11, 11-8, 11-9.
Burgess met defending champion Zia Khan and won 11-9, 6-11, 10-12, 12-10, 11-9.
In the ladies’ singles, Alison Phillips defended her title against Varaya Meredith, the former winning without dropping a set and collecting her 13th crown.
Phillips partnered Hough in the mixed doubles against Meredith who was teamed up with Westwood. The two individual champions eased to victory in three straight sets.
However in the ladies’ doubles the tables were reversed when Meredith and Marie Thorpe came out on top against the Phillips and Alice Maud combination 11-5, 11-8, 11-8.
In the veterans’ singles defending champion Hough edged out Khan 11-7, 11-9, 11-8 to retain the crown.
The tournament also featured, for the second year, a supervets (over 60’s) category which saw a much larger entry this year.
And a new name will appear on the trophy after Cyril Merriman got the better of Graham Fairhall in four, 11-3, 10-12, 11-8, 11-7.
In the men’s doubles, losing singles finalist Burgess and last year’s losing doubles finalist Gareth Dunn came together to beat losing singles semi- finalists Westwood and Khan in a four- setter 5-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-9.
The handicap singles saw Kieran Jones take on Westwood with Jones receiving a 15 point advantage. Jones took the first set 21-4 before Westwood fought back to take the second 21-20.
However Westwood could not maintain the pressure on Jones who ran out a 21-16 winner in the third.
The handicap doubles competition last year saw the father and son combination of Luke and Adrian Hough beat Phillips and Dunn.
This year, Phillips and Dunn won their way through to the final again where they met yet another father and son combination of Dave and Will Ferry.
The Ferrys had a three point handicap start and the outcome was the same except that Dave and Will needed three sets to secure victory this time by 13-21, 21-16, 21-12.
