Junior British League 2023-24, the most anticipated, most competitive, and most fun junior tournament of the season ended last weekend with the usual buzz and of course Woodford Wells success!
The only way Woodford Wells goes away from Derby Arena without a trophy if the organizers forget to bring one…! 😊 After ‘21/22 and ‘22/23 when the girls won Division-3 and Division-1 respectively, this time it was the boys’ time to shine…
GIRLS
The girls had to face a huge challenge having to compete in the top division the whole season without their no.1 player, Lizi Fazekas who couldn’t make it either weekend due to her international commitments. Therefore, the girls didn’t have much chance to really compete for the title. Hats off to the core team, Izzy and Ruby who didn’t get discouraged but fought every match from the beginning to the end, and of course to the two youngsters, Maisha (11) and Melisha (13) who stepped up in the absence of Lizi and made the most of the opportunity of playing against the country’s bests at such a young age!
BOYS
The fact that the boys jumped from last year’s Div-7 to Div-2 was a (scary) challenge in itself….! 😊 Our international superstar, Vladimir Pandurevic carried the team on weekend-one with his 100% record for which he was awarded the prestigious player of the weekend trophy voted by the umpires across all the divisions. The rest of the team (Adam Alibhai, Rayan Ansari and Aarav Parihar) was fighting hard, getting used to the strong division and all the pressure that comes with it, so they can pick up as many points as possible to keep us in the race for the title…
We arrived for the second weekend sitting at the third place of the table but with a clear objective of trying to win the league! The dedication and hard work the boys demonstrated in the last few months reflected not only in their spirits this weekend but clearly in the results as well…
While Vladi had showed his class again – he repeated his 100% winning rate – the rest of the team showed everyone that it was not a one-man-show when they won their first four matches 6-0, 5-1, 5-1, 6-0! (The same matches in the first weekend were 4-2, 4-2, 3-3, 2-4!) This was enough to win the division regardless of the last round.
Adam and Rayan achieved better personal record in div-2 this year than they did last year in div-7 which anyone who is aware of the depth of JBL knows what a big thing is! The 12-year-old Aarav Parihar who played his first JBL also proved that he was much more than just a substitute and significantly contributed with his 3 out of 8 wins!
Click HERE for all the results, league tables, player’s averages!
Click HERE for the JBL report on Table Tennis England’s website!