Canterbury Players Wins Two Titles At North Island Champs

The North Island Table Tennis Champs in Auckland proved to be a good event Canterbury’s Jenny Hung as the 26-year-old won two of her three events.

Originally seeded second in the women’s singles, Huang was promoted to the top spot after the withdrawal of Selina Wang (North Shore) with Illness.

Hung, a New Zealand representative at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi and 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow defeated Wellington second seed Hui-Ling Vong in the North Island final 4-2, winning the first game, but dropping the next two before coming back strongly to win the remaining three games.

Huang had earlier beaten her doubles partner Natalie Paterson (Manawatu) in straight games in her semifinal, while Vong accounted for Masters player Jo Shaw 4-1 in her semi.

Hung also won the hotly contested open mixed draw combining with fellow Cantab, Hongyi Li to beat former Kiwi Olympian Barry Griffiths and Shaw 3-1 for the title.

Hung wasn’t so fortunate in the open women’s doubles draw as World Masters champs Sarah Sandley and Shaw, both former England representatives won in straight games over Hung and Paterson.

The men’s open singles had top seed and four-time national champs winner Tony Liu take the title in four games over Dean Shu (Auckland). Earlier Liu had defeated Manawatu’s Matthew Bell in straight games in his semifinal and Shu had beaten fellow World University Games team member Victor Ma (Waitemata) 4-2.

The experienced doubles team of Aucklanders Josh Alexandre and Nathan Lowe continued their form after recently winning the World Masters Games over 30’s title. They were challenged by the Waitemata junior pair of Alfred dela Pena and Victor Ma who but still came away winners 3-2 in the final.