Day two at the Tees Sport supported Newcastle Grand Prix witnessed upsets galore in the Men’s Open where the atmosphere was electric with a whole packet of top seeds falling by the wayside.
Firstly Stewart Crawford S2 took an early bath after succumbing to the French hotshot Wilson Huart in the round of the last sixteen, followed by Darius Knight S1 making his way back to Sheffield after a dramatic and unexpected loss to Flying Scotsman Niall Cameron 9-11 in the fifth after leading 6-2 in the deciding end. Wow what a dramatic match then total silence followed! With Cameron S5 safely through to the last four, this left the remaining quarter final match between Damien Nicholls S3,(who had earlier been responsible for the departure of Scott Barton) and Craig Hardie (who had a famous win over Ben Barlow and was on cloud 9 from yesterday) in the top half of the draw to be played.
The two remaining quarter final encounters in the lower half of the draw were between Matt Ware S4 opposing Euan Liddle with Ashley Willetts up against Wilson Huart. The Frenchman came through 3-1 over Ashley Willets to book his semi final place whilst Matt Ware took a straight sets win against Euan Liddle to meet Monsieur Huart for a place in the final.
Damien Nicholls was simply superb in blasting away yesterday’s hero Scotsman Craig Hardie in straight sets to set up a last four clash with Niall Cameron (on a high after displacing Darius Knight in the previous round). This meant that three out of the four semi finalists hailed from the Grantham College Academy! The Scotsman Cameron was probably playing his best ever table tennis and was in the zone throughout his semi final battle with Nicholls taking the match 3-0 to await his final opponent. Two tables away Matt Ware was also finding top form to halt the Frenchman’s dramatic progress coming through in three close sets to set up an England v Scotland final.
Ware took first blood in the opening set of the final, however it was once again the Flying Scotsman Cameron who soaked up everything that Ware could throw at him countering spectacularly with top class back from the table pinpoint topspin rallies that the audience were in awe of. Niall levelled at 1-1, and then followed probably the finest set of wall to wall class from both finalists. Cameron then took that all so important 3rd set 15-13, which he then followed up 11-8 in the 4th leg to secure an unexpected but thoroughly well deserved victory to be crowned Newcastle Men’s Open Champion together with a nice cheque for £300.
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