Hampshire's successful squad

With many of England's top junior table tennis girls competing at home, at the Derby junior event last weekend, Andover's Hannah Hicks, was away in Sweden playing for Team Ljungsbro, in the final weekend in the Women's League Division One.

Hannah played the final match against Sara Shuster, the Swedish national top 12 junior, and secured victory for her side, to give the team promotion to Sweden's Elite League next season. Ljungsbro is a small town close to Linkoping and Stockholm's Skavsta airport, and the town was celebrating with their first ever team to play in any sport in Sweden's elite.

Hannah's own impressive string of victories over high level opposition during the course of the season included opponents of varied styles. Emma Varynen is the best young defender in Sweden but Hannah dominated and won 3-1. Emila Akerstrom is one of the top two "frictionless" players in the country, again Hannah won 3-1. Karin Svensson, Sara Lundin, Caroline Olsson and Nina Stenviken all qualified for the National top 12 in Sweden, but it didn't help them against Hannah.

Linda Dahlstrom, Phillipa Rohdin and Ida Soderland have all played several times for the national team, but none of them had any answer to the depth and variation of Hannah's game.

It hasn't all been plain sailing as Hannah has taken the major step of changing her style to an orthodox defender ready to attack from both close to, and back from the table.

Hannah says: "I have studied all the world's best women defenders with my coach and hardly any of them have a strong attack. I intend to be a different type of defender. It's been hard for me over the last six months or so and I've had a few setbacks, but now things are starting to come together."

Hannah will be on home soil this weekend, playing in the Hampshire junior team as they try to retain the County Junior Premier title they so valiantly won last year.

Hannah Hicks has also just returned from a very successful weekend in Walsall with the Hampshire Junior side where they retained the Premier Division trophy.

This was the final session of four matches and with Hampshire undefeated they were clear favourites. The first three matches against Devon, Essex and Derbyshire resulted in wins of 7-3; 10-0 and 7-3. Lincolnshire, were level on points with Hampshire, but with a worse games difference and the two faced each other in the final match with Hants needing a draw to clinch the title. The team of Hannah, Annabelle Morle, David McBeath, Garth Kinlocke and Riuhao Zhang were in no mood to accept second place and promptly swept into a commanding 4-0 lead.

After a minor setback when Morle lost to Emma Bates, Kinlocke got the point they needed by disposing of Michael Bates in good style. Hampshire eventually won the match 7-3.

Back home in the quarter-finals of the Advertiser Cup Hanson A, last season's runners up, followed their 9-0 win in the previous round with a 6-3 victory to put Hanson Wolves out. Chris Stockdale was the chief destroyer, taking all three of his games.

The Ladies Scorpions side lost the sting in their tail and were dumped out by Hanson B with Brian Fox playing a major part in their demise. In an extremely close match Hanson Tigers entertained Figheldean and went 3-1 up before Lionel Coles and Brian Rayment levelled. Joel Holt completed his hat-trick but Brian Cook again put Figheldean level with a three set win over Joe Harding. It was then left to Jerry Holt and Rayment to decide the winners in the final game and Holt kept his head finally winning the game and the match for Tigers, 5-4.

Possibly the youngest team in the competition is Test Valley D and they were pitched against the Underdogs from Division One. It was always going to be a daunting task for the Underdogs players, who were having to give 18 or more points away in each game. Charlie Murphy took the first game from Ray Carver but Josh White 2 and Pierce Stretch took the next three, to put themselves into a strong position. With Joe Taylor beating Carver in three sets and Ray Lockington taking care of Stretch, the match was again level. Murphy then beat White and Taylor clinched the win with success over the luckless Stretch.

Elsewhere, South Wonston B beat Wolversdene 5-4, but the A side suffered a heavy 9-0 defeat at the hands of Test Valley A. Another 9-0 win saw Test Valley C through at the expense of the last remaining Ladies' team. The semi-finals are in a fortnight's time.

8:29am Thursday 20th March 2008

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