I was really happy to take this match to win the tournament overall! Mark had been playing well all day, and had beaten some strong opponents earlier on (Mal McEvoy and Ben Griffiths to name a few). The last time I played Mark at Ellesmere Port he hammered me, but I think he’s changed his bat set up and this seemed to suit me more, it didn’t give me as much trouble as before. I think the first two sets I got in well to attack and was able to spin the floaty returns off the pips with my forehand. In the 3rd set he started to return every serve directly to my BH and this gave me problems. I was erratic dealing with this and hence he won that set easily. Luckily I identified the pattern of play and was able to adjust as I began to expect it, and was then able to start attacking once I’d got his service returns back.

Well played Neil, loverly backhand 😀🏓

Since now u improved,most of the short pips guys put it on bh for block but its bad. The reason why because once playing blocks it can just pop up the ball into an easy ball for u to loop,vary and putting pressure against the opponent. But this guy plays it well and understands it although,Neil you've powered it through with nice and paitient with nice placement variations into the rally. This is great table tennis you've played in a final,to be fair it wasn't that difficult when you were in this form all because of looping nicely on the table. Well done neil

Good effort Neil..