Garry Dodd in action.
GUERNSEY were right out of luck as they succumbed in the deciding leg of the deciding rubber of their inter-insular semi-final table tennis clash with Jersey yesterday morning.
Trevor Lefebvre was the match-winner for the Caesareans as he withheld a remarkable fightback from Olly Langlois to claim the final set of an absorbing match.
Guernsey’s 15-year-old had agonisingly lost the first two legs 14-12, 11-9 and was on the verge of defeat when the third reached a similar stage, but two points on the bounce from 9-9 saw him reduce the deficit to one.
He then stormed through the fourth with alarming ease to raise the hopes of a good Sarnian support, but Lefebvre went through the gears once more and produced a fine display in the final set to claim it 11-4.
‘It was a very tense match,’ said Guernsey captain Phil Ogier.
‘Credit to Jersey for winning. Trevor Lefebvre played exceptionally well in the decider. At 2-2, it looked as if Olly was favourite because of his momentum, but the difference was that he had a poor start in the deciding leg.
‘It was a match that could have gone either way and we have come up on the wrong side of the result.’
Things were tight from the off.
Langlois started brilliantly to establish a 2-0 lead over Craig Gascoyne and although the Jersey development officer pulled one leg back, the Guernsey youngster finished him off in four.
On the next table, Dawn Morgan took the opening leg against Nicola Duke, surrendered the next two but forced a decider by winning the fourth.
However, Duke finished strongly and levelled the overall match at one rubber apiece.
Garry Dodd then picked up where he had left off from the previous two days of competition with a straight-sets victory over Trevor Lefebvre, but again Jersey took the spoils on the next table with Duke and Karen Lefebvre overcoming Morgan and Kay Chivers.
The crucial rubber always looked likely to be that between Dodd and Gascoyne.
Unfortunately for the Sarnian, it was the first time in the week he had been put under real pressure and he started to snatch at shots at crucial times.
Each of the three legs was tight, but it was Gascoyne who kept cool on the crucial points to force the mistakes out of his opponent and he took it 11-9, 11-9, 11-9. But Dodd exacted a certain amount of revenge in the following mixed doubles with some brilliant table tennis alongside Morgan to overcome Gascoyne and Karen Lefebvre in straight legs and force the decider.
‘The game results did not really go the way I had expected them to, but we kept digging in and coming up trumps to stay in it until the last game,’ Ogier said.
Guernsey receive a bronze medal as losing semi-finalists and later thumped Greenland 7-0 to clinch third place.Day three in Aland: Inter-insular semi-final goes Jersey’s way in tightest of fashions
Article posted on 1st July, 2009 - 2.29pm
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