Chris Butt - Southampton Men's Singles Champion 2010.

The Men's Singles final at the Southampton Closed 2010 was an open fast flowing exchange between two skillful and determined players. Defending Champion from last year Trung Tran and former star Junior player Chris Butt making his return to the sport. The appreciative crowd were treated to a devastating first end of table tennis from the defending champion who attacked early in the rally to achieve the decisive advantage. So 1-0 up to Trung Tran but now Chris was spurred into action and with strong play on both wings leveled the score. Chris took an early lead in game 3 racing ahead before Trung asked for a time-out (unfortunately the Southampton rules are a little out of sync with the rest of the world and the umpire could not give the time-out). Trung accepted this gracefully and continued to fight hard getting within a whisker before Chris scored the decisive point to take the lead. In the 4th end both players fought hard but Chris was able to maintain his attack on both wings a bit better than Trung and that proved decisive. A thoroughly entertaining and competitive match which was appreciated by the spectators. The final can be seen on our youTube Video Channel very soon.

The awards for Junior and Cadet Players of the Year were also presented at the event and this year the Junior Award went to Tressa Armitage and the Cadet Award to Josh Green.

The Veteran Men's Final was between Paul May and Gary Longland and if ever young players wanted to see hunger to win and determination there was plenty of it on show in this thoroughly entertaining final.  They say the camera never lies and the facial expressions of these players show you just how hard they were fighting - judge for yourselves....
(Click on pics for larger versions)

Paul May came out on top in this epic duel to become Southampton Mens Veteran Champion.

Reports on other events to follow...