Waterside 1 star Open
Geoff Ware
The birth of a new and exciting Olympic year is now firmly upon us and it was refreshing to witness the young blood and possible future 2020 Olympians carving out their own unique stamp on the Butterfly plywood. A total of seventy young players from eight different counties enjoyed plenty of match competition at yet another very successful Waterside two day Open tournament (another breeding ground for future stars).
The tournament was held over the weekend of the 7th/8th of January, at the popular venue of Waterside’s Testwood College Sports arena in Southampton. The Sunday event reached a nail-biting climax when the top two seeds in the Cadet and Junior boys fought out a couple of pulsating finals.
In the afternoon five Junior Girls contested another round robin competition on Sunday resulting in a title win for Becky Kuzu from Dorset taking the podium top spot, with Amy Blagbrough in second, Kristelle Brook in third while Hannah McErlane and Emma Blanchford gained valuable match experience.

Becky (yet another player from the Bournemouth Sports and Portchester conveyor belt) has a unique but simple approach to table tennis with a close up to the table style of pushing, blocking and counter hitting that proves very effective and just keeps getting the ball back on the table.