Disability Sport Events (DSE) organised the annual table tennis tournament held in Stoke Mandeville covering those individuals with a wide range of pan disabilities. This was my fourth disability tournament and it was going to be an interesting weekend to determine whether my table tennis performance has improved since my first DSE event in September 2006. This event was held over two days.

1st September 2007
Saturday morning consisted of the class categories and each pool was based on a round robin contest in my pool were three other competitors. It was going to be interesting when I received some coaching in August from Marcus Berry with the objective of executing some forehand shots. Unfortunately, all my competitors were attacking me on my backhand. The first two matches against Chris Raynor and Adam Fontain, I didn’t perform too well and lost in three straight games. My final match went the full distance to five games and I came back from 2-0 down, only to lose the 5th game to lose 3-2. Overall I was disappointed with my morning’s performance.

After a hearty lunch and feeling slightly down, I was unsure the person I was going to partner in the Doubles section. A pleasant 16 years old teenager, Aaron Mckibbon, came up to me and introduced himself as my doubles partner. I was unsure of his standard of play, but soon realised I had a gem of a partner. The doubles section was also based on a round robin contest and from my England camp training weekends appreciated the high standard we were going to face. The first two matches, we won in three games, but lost in the final match against the pool winners 3-0.

I was then into unchartered territory at the knock out stage of the tournament and successfully overcame the first hurdle before losing in the quarterfinals. I was extremely pleased with my performance in the afternoon session because I had to serve, move around the table whilst returning shots from my opponents.

After the first day’s match play, I surprised one of the competitor’s mothers by asking her to carry my birthday cake from my vehicle to the canteen in a few hours time. In this short timescale the England training camp players and parents signed a birthday card and presented it to me with some beers after the evening meal. A chorus of Happy Birthday was also song. I was over-the-moon with everyone efforts and it was immensely appreciated.

2nd September 2007
The morning session consisted with the ‘Open’ tournament and I was in the same pool as one of the players I competed against yesterday, Chris Raynor. Whilst he beat me 3-0, I put up a better performance and used sporadically some forehand shots. It was only after this match when Chris informed me that I had given him six points when I tried using my forehand shots, but they were not landing on the table. An area for improvement. The second match I also lost in straight sets, and in my third and final match was my best performance against Howard Tomlinson, a member of the Mencap England training squad. I was 2-0 up and 7-4 in the third game only to lose this match 3-2. I could have kicked myself letting the possibility of victory slip through my fingers. However, all credit must go to my competitor with his sterling fight back.

Being knocked out of the ‘Open’ session and not reaching any of the finals, Sunday afternoon was spent sitting in the gallery watching the final few matches to determine who were going to win the medals. This was a good opportunity to watch other people compete in the knowledge the performance level I have to achieve to gain success in this sport.

Ian Thomas