Sam Chesterman scoops national table tennis title

Doubles victory for Cambridge youngster

Sam Chesterman has won his first national table tennis title.

The 14-year-old former Coleridge Community College student claimed the Cadet boys’ doubles title alongside Amirul Hussain in Gillingham.

They beat second seeds Jamie Liu and Reece Chamdal in the semi-finals, and then defeated top seeds Ethan Walsh and Joe Cope 3-1 (11-7, 11-9, 9-11, 11-3) in the final to go one better than last year, when they were runners-up.

Chesterman said: “It feels really good because last year we managed to get to the final as quite low seeds and our aim was to win it this year. We performed really well in the final and lived up to our expectations.

“We work really well together. We know each other’s weaknesses and try to communicate and set each other up for our strengths.”

In the Cadet boys’ singles, unseeded Chesterman qualified from his group and then defeated third seed Josh Weatherby 4-3 in the last 16. But he was beaten 4-1 by Cope in the next round.

He added: “After I lost that match point against Josh, there were a lot of things going through my mind and when I lost the set my head went a bit, but I managed to get it back in the seventh.”

In the older junior competitions, Chesterman was knocked out in the group stage of the singles and went into the consolation event, where he was defeated in the first round.

He and Hussain were beaten in the first round of the doubles by Walsh, who was partnered on this occasion by James Smith.

Playing alongside Jasmin Wong, he was eliminated in the first round of the mixed doubles.