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Sam Hanley is double National Junior Champion
Sam Hanley followed the example of clubmate Gavin Maguire to win the National Junior boys title at DCU this weekend. Gavin had won Senior Mens title at the National championships a few weeks ago where Sam had reached the quarter finals only to lose narrowly to John Murphy but he was peerless in the Junior event. He did not drop a single set in the defence of the title he had won a year ago.

In the final last year Sam had won a very exciting match against Gavin Maguire 12-10 in the fifth. It was in contrast to this year's event where Sam was rarely stretched in the course of the tournament. In the Semi he beat Cory O'Rourke 3-0 to book a place in the final against Sam Logue. Sam played well in the final and eased his way to a one set lead before his only wobble of the day in the second set when he let slip a 10-6 lead before recovering to win the deuce. In the third it was tight but Sam always seemed to conjure up some magic at the right moments to win the big points. Later on Sam Logue partnered Sam to victory in the doubles final.

In the Junior girls Sara Dolan was beaten in the quarter finals 3-1 by Rebecca Kenny. Sara had played well in the group stages winning all her matches well and looked very sharp but having won the first against Rebecca ,she was beaten 3-1 in the end. In the Under 12s Phillip Scarry and Conor Murphy both played well in their first National championships and both lost to highly seeded played in the second round having come through their first round groups.

In the Cadet boys Conor Beades got to the semi final before losing 3-0 to eventual winner Stephen Slater. In the earlier  rounds Conor had overcome promising under 12 Ryan Farrell 3-1 and Cork's Shane Foley 3-0 in the quarters. Adam Claffey will have been disappointed to lose in the last 16 to Brian Kellaher from Cork.

Gavin Maguire is 2009 National Champion
18 year old Gavin Maguire won his first Senior Mens title at the National championships when he captured the blue riband event at the tournament held in ALSAA yesterday. He overcame a bout of sickness and the two top mens seeds Peter Graham and John Murphy to snatch the title in an exciting five setter

In the semi final Gavin played superb attacking table tennis to beat an in form Peter Graham 3-1. In a closely fought final with two time champion John Murphy, it looked all over when John clinched a two nil lead. At 7-5 down in the third Gavin fought back to win that set and amazingly was 8-3 down in the fourth before playing the best table tennis of his day to snatch that set to even up the contest at 2-2. It was nip and tuck till 5-5 in the fifth but Gavin's clever serves and returns gave him a 10-5 lead before John battled back to 10-7. Gavin clinch the title 11-7 in the fifth with a superb aggresive topspin attack. It was a gutsy performance witnessed by an enthusiastic crowd and filmed by RTE for later transmission. Congratulations to Gav.

Sam Hanley narrowly missed out on an Eastpoint clean sweep when he lost a closely fought Under 21 final to Paul McCreery and then teamed up with Daniel Keenan to reach the Mens doubles final and suffered another narrow defeat to Peter Graham and Paul McCreery in a tight five setter. Sam had earlier lost 11-9 in the fifth set in the quarter finals of the mens singles to John Murphy.

Sara Dolan had a superb day in the Ladies singles reaching the semi final before losing to world ranked Na Liu. Sara also partner Fiona Dennett to a superb win over Amanda Mogey and Ashley Givan in the Ladies doubles semin final before losing out to top seed Na Liu and Claire Nelson in a tight five set final. Photos from the Nationals couresy of Lindie Naughton

Check out the older news stories in the News Archive
Cadets in Cheltenham 04.08
Gavin Maguire in Nationals final 05.08

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