March 27, 2015, by Lee Chrimes
BUCS Big Wednesday 2015: Dream double for University of Nottingham Table Tennis
University history was made for the Nottingham this week when our Men’s and Women’s table tennis teams both won the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) National Championship team title, as part of the ‘Big Wednesday‘ day of cup final matches at the Loughborough University sports facilities throughout March 25.
In a scintillating afternoon of table tennis at Loughborough Sportpark, The University of Nottingham defeated arch rivals and previous title holders Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in both the Men’s and Women’s Championship finals, and secured qualification for the European Table Tennis Championships.
Both titles came within minutes of each other, as the Women’s team of Yolanda King and Tressa Armitage produced an amazing display to oust NTU 3-0, with Yolanda winning 3 games to 2 in the final match against England number 5 and Ladies National bronze medallist Emma Vickers.
Tressa set the tone for the match with a 3-0 victory against Vickers, before Yolanda pulled off a superb 3 sets to 2 win against NTU’s BUCS Individual Gold medallist Alice Loveridge. This left Yolanda to finish off the tie and complete a shock clean sweep against Vickers in what was widely expected to be a very close match.
Shortly after this the Men’s team of Paul McCreery, Liam McTiernon, Ben Gardner and James Grayson were celebrating a 9-5 win over a three-time gold medal winning NTU side led by England number 5 Chris Doran.
All University of Nottingham Sport players were in great form, none more so than Liam who claimed the key scalp of Doran 12-10 in the deciding fifth game, to leave the match finely poised at 5-4. Liam turned around a 8-10 deficit in the final end with an awesome display of attacking table tennis. With Irish national champion Paul McCreery simultaneously defeating NTU number 2 Emran Hussein on the adjacent table, this put Nottingham in the driving seat from which they never looked back.
Nicola Perry, Director of Table Tennis at The University of Nottingham, said: “I am so pleased and proud of all the players who have worked incredibly hard to win these titles, and I want to thank the whole coaching team for their efforts over the season.
“These are exciting times for table tennis at the University, with more players now looking to be part of the set up here, and I am confident the programme will only go from strength to strength.”
You can relive the excitement through the BUCS website, who have both picture galleries from the day’s events and a live feed of results that charts our teams’ progress to victory. You can also follow University of Nottingham Table Tennis on Twitter for more photos and news from the finals.
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