Author: Site Admin

Woodfield table tennis club helps players of all ages and abilities to get the most out of their table tennis. There are regular coaching sessions during the day and evenings. On Friday evening, between 6pm and 8pm, it is the advanced Junior session. These are players who are competing in tournaments and playing at County, National and International level. 

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The objective of these sessions is to give the players the chance for training at a higher intensity with specific drills to improve their technique.

The Friday session is lead by Desmond Douglas, who doesn’t need any introduction in the world of table tennis.  Des has been coming to Woodfield for a number of years and has helped many of Woodfield’s junior players reach a very high standard. As well as demonstrating the skill at a very high level, Des has an amazing ability to observe players in incredible detail and then identify why a particular stroke isn’t being as effective as it could be. Des breaks the session down into multiple parts to keep players on their toes and working hard. For example a session could have, technical drills, serve and receive, high intensity drills, multi-ball and match play. Quite often the last part of the session is dedicated to specific physical exercises to help with footwork and agility.

During the session Des may take some players one to one to work on their technique using multi ball. Des will have noticed something during the group practice and will now be working with the player to improve that particular point. This level of attention to detail is really valuable and he has a great understanding of how each player is developing from week to week.

Woodfield encourages the young players to compete with the National Cadet and Junior League teams and also Junior British League. Players who train at Woodfield regularly compete on the national tournament circuit. The training and coaching that they receive at the club has enabled them to progress significantly towards their goals.

If you are a developing junior player that could benefit from coaching from Des Douglas and practising on a regular basis, please contact the club to see if it would be suitable for you.

Charlotte Bardsley who has still quite some time left in the cadets age category has now reached 6th position in the England Junior rankings published in November. Charlotte spent a lot of the pre-season away from home on training camps in England and Denmark. This has helped her have a real flying start to the season in the Junior competitions.

Charlotte Bardsley who has still quite some time left in the cadets age category has now reached 6th position in the England Junior rankings published in November. Charlotte spent a lot of the pre-season away from home on training camps in England and Denmark. This has helped her have a real flying start to the season in the Junior competitions.

She represented England Midlands at the Sainsbury school games held in Manchester, helping the Midlands team secure overall team gold. She recorded 100%  success rate when playing Junior British League at Derby and was also a finalist at the Stockton Junior 4* event. With some good victories against higher ranking opponents she has risen from 15th to 6th in just 2 months of competition. Charlotte is also ranked 2 in the cadet age category.

All of the recent progression and improvement hasn’t gone unnoticed to the England team selectors and Charlotte recently had her first chance to compete for England in an ITTF Junior & Cadet world tour event at the Hungarian Open. Charlotte competed in the cadet age category and being still 13 years old, she therefore faced players up to two years older than her who already had a lot of international experience. The Hungarian Open is one of the largest events on the Junior circuit and attracts top players from all over the world. Charlotte recorded her first ITTF tour win against Serbia in the team event and then had several very close losses which went the distance, just failing to qualify to the main draw. However she gained some really valuable experience and was able to see the playing standard she will need to get to for success at international level.

Woodfield player Charlotte Bardsley travelled to Perth in Scotland as one of a 24 strong squad of England Schools players competing in the Home Nations International. Charlotte qualified for the England Schools team by virtue of her 2nd place in the U14 England Schools finals held at Tipton in April. She was partnered by Gauri Duhan from Hull in the team event who had come 1st. England fielded two girls and boys teams in each age category of U14, U16 and U18.  

After a long trip up to the Bells arena, the players had to already start the team matches on Friday evening. With 8 teams competing in one large group and the format of 4 singles and one doubles for each match it also meant an early start and late finish on Saturday. England were playing in a bright orange kit with strong set of yellow lights so the pictures are rather yellow!

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England 1 and England 2 U14 girls both made strong starts against Scotland 1 and 2, but then they had to play each other which ended up being a key match in deciding the medal positions later in the competition. England 1 won that match 4-1 and so went into Saturday unbeaten along with Ireland and Wales. After defeating Isle of Man and Guernsey, England 1 then had a decisive wins against Ireland (4-1) and Wales (5-0) which meant that they were sure of Gold going into the last match with Scotland 1. Similarly England 2 U14 girls with Mollie Patterson and Katie Holt were also now able to secure silver with their wins over Ireland and Wales. The final positions for the girls U14 were England 1, England 2, Ireland.

On the Sunday it was the individual competitions which followed a group and then knockout competition. All 4 England girls were seeded in different groups and duly won their groups.  Charlotte was drawn to face Mollie Patterson from England 2 in the semis which won. She then had to wait almost an hour to find out who she would face in the final as the other side of the draw had many 5 set matches. In fact the last match of the whole tournament was to be Charlotte versus her team mate from the previous day, Gauri Duhan. This was a rerun of the final held at Tipton. Gauri had made a brilliant comeback from the brink of defeat in the semi-final where she overturned a 9-5 deficit in the 5th to run out a 15-13 winner against Kate Whelan of Ireland. She took that momentum into the final and took a quick first end. Charlotte fought back to level it 1-1 but then Gauri was able to edge a tight 3rd end in deuce. Charlotte regrouped again and was able to counter the heavy top spin from Gauri by taking the last two ends to 4 and 7 for her to take her first schools individual title.

Some great performances by all of the England teams over the three days of competition. Details of the full England results will be updated shortly on the ESTTA website.

A productive but a very long day for 13 year old Charlotte Bardsley. The first group matches started at 9am and she was still competing at 9:30pm in the doubles final. So after more than 12 hours of competition in what was a very warm sports arena, she came away from Ponds Forge with 3 national finals medals to add to her growing collection. Charlotte who competed in both U13 and U14 girls singles, came eventually 3rd in both of those events. She got through to both quarter-finals stages without dropping a set but then had more work to do in the quarters, coming through both with good 3-1 wins.

She lost out in a very tight semi-final to the eventual winner in the U13 and the same also occurred in the U14. In the doubles she made it to the final with her partner, Alice Dillon from Lancashire. This was the first time they had played together as a doubles pair and they quickly established an effective partnership, comfortably getting to the final where they just came short in the end.

Harry Fletcher competed in the U11 boys singles for his first time at the nationals. He was in a tough group and despite some great table tennis he wasn’t able to get into the knock-out stages of the competition this time.

Harry Fletcher, one of Woodfield’s up and coming young junior players was going through his paces at Woodfield this week in preparation for the U11-U14 England Nationals this weekend. Harry who is 10 years old, will be making his first appearance at this prestigious event which is being held at the Ponds Forge centre in Sheffield. Harry is one of the West Midlands players who will be battling it out in the U11 singles category. As he will face the challenge of some of the best young players in the country it will be a great learning experience for him.

Another young Woodfield player, Charlotte Bardsley is also participating in the tournament where she will play in the U13 & U14 singles and will partner Alice Dillon from Lancashire in the U14 doubles. We wish them both success at the weekend.

Woodfield win the Wolverhampton and District Handicap Knockout Trophy. Great achievement for the players, three of them being juniors.

Woodfield Junior players were in action at the Staffordshire County Closed event for Juniors held on Sunday 3rd May at Burton Uxbridge TTC.

After some excellent play, Jack Wood was able to claim 3 titles. He won the Cadet and Junior boys and then with his partner, Luke Gittins, he took the U18 doubles.

Georgia Harris also came away with some silverware after she also put in a great performance. She claimed two runner up spots in the Cadet girls and the Junior girls.

Clearly all of the hard work in the training sessions at Woodfield is really paying off for these young players