Table Tennis Academy Players' Scottish Success

The ASV Table Tennis Academy continues to go from strength to strength this year!

Keeping up their winning streak, March has seen even more success from the ASV Table Tennis Academy.

The Scottish National Table Tennis Championships took place in early March with great representation from Aberdeen across all categories.

Kiishi Adekola and Nikki Mo went head to head in the U13 girls' final, living up to their top two seedings. After a very close deuce first game Kiishi proved too strong, taking the Scottish U13 Girls title, with Nikki picking up the silver.

Kiishi and Nikki also stepped up to the U15 girls' event, taking the silver and bronze medals respectively.

In the U19 boys' event, Harry Blackhall was disappointed to go out in the semi-finals, losing to eventual winner Nathan Hogg (Largs Table Tennis Club) who Harry defeated only a month earlier at the North of Scotland Open.

The U19 boys is particularly strong with up to 8 players capable of winning events, so it was a good performance from Harry despite him being disappointed!

Matthew Pszonka also made the semi-final in the U15 boys' event. This was a good result for Matthew, coming in seeded No 6 at the start of the day.

Just two weeks later the TT Academy got even more wins under their belt at the Table Tennis Scotland Interleague Championships.

Kiishi and Nikki dominated the U13 event and took the Scottish Team title to add to their gold and silver in the individual champs a fortnight earlier. Fantastic stuff from the girls and once again hammering home their dominance in Scotland at the moment!

All our boys' teams across the U13, U15 and U19 events were in with a chance, and by the second day of play all 3 teams had made their respective finals!

The U13 boys were led by Matthew and supported by Dean Robertson and James Tait, both of whom were playing in their first team event representing Aberdeen!

Despite strong performances from the boys, and Matthew fighting for every point against the team from Edinburgh, they had to settle for the silver medal.

It was then the turn of the U15 boys team of Jakub Krzyzostaniak, Robbie Martin, and Ben Stewart, with Ben also making his debut appearance in the Aberdeen team.

Like their U13 counterparts, the U15 boys had to settle for the silver medal, after going down to a strong West of Scotland team.

The U19 boys, led by Harry and joined by Daniel Tibbetts and Allan He, were also up against Edinburgh in their final. After a strong win against the West of Scotland in the semi-final, with Harry taking revenge on Nathan Hogg from the National Championships earlier that month, it was looking positive for the boys.

Unfortunately Borui Chen, formerly an ASV Academy player now at school in Edinburgh, was inspired and remained unbeaten in the final. This meant the Aberdeen boys had to win the rest of the games available but unfortunately they were not able to do that, and also finished with silver.

In other events, the Aberdeen Senior Ladies team took the bronze, with 14-year old Maja Wojcicka part of the Ladies team. The Senior Men's team, which included 2 ASV TT Academy graduates, finished in a respectable 4th place in their event.

Topping off a fantastic month for the TT Academy was earning a place as finalists in two categories of Aberdeen's Sports Awards.

The Under 13s team was one of the finalists in the Team Performance of the Year category, a well-earned acknowledgement of the fantastic efforts they've put in over the past year!

TT Academy coach Natalie Gallan was a finalist in the Community/Participation Coach of the Year category. Natalie, alongside the other Academy coaches, devotes so much of her time to helping improve the skills of the players and cheering them on in competition, and it was brilliant to see her hard work recognised!