The New Milton Table Tennis Club now has only one team left in the Annual Times & Directory Handicap Cup competition as the B team crashed out of their “Cup” semi-final and the E team booked their place in the “Plate” semi-finals.

First the good news; the E team who normally play in Div 3 took on Div 4’s Merton H in the quarter-finals of the “Plate” and beat them fairly comfortably by 5-1 at the Mudeford Wood Community Centre. Matthew Winter, playing off a +19 handicap, literally got the ball rolling by beating Merton’s Alan Dufall (+22) by 2-1, Simon Golding (+18) beat Reinhard Lindner (+21) in another three-setter, but there was a slight stumble as captain Bev Scott-Johns (+21) lost to Dave Poynton (+22). However, it was plain sailing thereafter as the Milton trio won their next three games in straight sets to take the match. They have been drawn against a fellow Div 3 side, Merton A, the match to be played at the neutral venue of Winton YMCA on Thursday 11^th April.

MATTHEW WINTER WON BOTH HIS MATCHES TO HELP THE E TEAM THROUGH TO THE PLATE SEMIS.

The B team did really well to get as far as the semi-finals of the “Cup”, but they ran out of steam against fellow Div 1 side Winton YMCA A at the neutral venue of Merton at Southbourne. It looked promising as Shaun Newcomb (+13) took the first set off Winton’s star player Julian Hewlett (+9) but Newcomb then lost the next two sets. Captain Malcolm Floyd (+14) then lost to Martin Poulson (+13), but rising star Matthew Daish (+12) gave Milton hope as he beat Anthony Forster (+9) in two straight sets. That proved to be a false dawn as Newcomb then narrowly lost to Poulson in an intriguing three-setter, and Daish did likewise against Hewlett. Floyd needed to win the next match to keep Milton in the Cup, but he lost in two straight sets against Forster, so Milton lost 1-5.