New Milton Table Tennis Club Chairman Shaun Newcomb and his doubles partner and protege Jack Pegram (Hertfordshire) are the new British Wheelchair Table Tennis doubles champions.

At the BTTAD (British Table Tennis Association for the Disabled) National Championships held recently at the Grantham Meres Table Tennis Centre, Newcomb and Pegram triumphed over stiff opposition, including current and past Paralympic players to take home the Gold.

Having also won the inaugural SportsAble Southern Disability Grand Prix doubles tournament in October, Newcomb and Pegram are a formidable pairing in wheelchair doubles and they went two sets up before the GB squad duo of Jack Hunter-Spivey and Sue Gilroy fought back to level the match. The game seemed to be slipping away as Newcomb & Pegram were down 4-8 in the deciding set but they managed to level and went on to win 12-10, the last few points giving the game a nail-biting finish.

SportsAble Open Singles winner Newcomb narrowly missed out in this Open Final having been two sets to one and 6-2 up in the fourth to the eventual Open winner Kevin Ploughman (Yorkshire), who showed real determination to come back and win the deciding end.

Both Newcomb and Pegram also had to settle for Bronze Medals in their respective disability classes, though as Newcomb said afterwards “three medals from the three tournament events at the National Championships isn’t too bad and it gives us an incentive to train a bit harder for 2015”.

Pictured below, Shaun proudly displaying his gold and two bronze medals.