Thomas, Zak & Sophie compete in the London GP over the weekend!
During the weekend, Thomas, Zak and Sophie played at the highly competitive London Grand Prix which saw over 230 players compete in Redbridge sports arena. Thomas and Sophie played in Bands 1 and 2 whilst Zak competed in Bands 2 and 3.
To start the day the boys got out of their band 2 groups with great wins against Billy Shilton and fusions Jamal Dennison. Similarly, Sophie got through her group with great wins such as Welsh junior Grace Clement. In the knockout stages, the boys won their opening knockout stage with Thomas getting a win against Adam Laws 3-0 whilst Zak got a superb win over Sam Wilson 3-1 (English National Team Junior)! After this the two boys were knocked out in the last 16 to Top seed Sing Wong and Jordan Wykes. Sophie impressively then went on to reach the final of Band 2 losing closely to Mollie Patterson 3-0.
The afternoon started band 1 and Thomas found it very challenging as he had a difficult group with England’s Junior No.1 Siraj, Guernsey No.1 Dodd and u21 2017 London GP champ Mitchell Jones. Sophie had a great band 1 event beating top-ranked players such as Lara Whitton and a Turkish girl who had only lost to Sophie the entire weekend. This meant Sophie reached the semis were she meet Anna Hursey. Despite losing this match Sophie was proud she was involved in a very competitive and top level match in which the scores 4,-9,-9,-11 proves she can compete with the worlds best.
On Sunday, the men’s and women’s singles began. All three players got through their groups with great wins including Zak beating championship player Adewale 3-2! In the knockout stages, Sophie went on to make the semis beating the number one English veteran and Turkish opposition to set up a semi-final with Mollie Patterson. Sophie improved in the match and showed great fight but from being behind 2-0 she found it to high a hill to climb and lost out 3-1. The boys lost out to both the number one seed, Vlasov and number 7 seed Akindiya but were glad to have played the two eventual finalists.
Overall this was a great weekend for all three players, with over 40 matches being played between the three. The weekend was topped by a nice surprise as Sophie took the honour of being the player of the weekend! Great job Sophie!
