Top table tennis comes to Thornaby Pavilion this weekend. And, despite being hit by the England junior team's visit to China, the two leading North-east clubs, Ormesby and Darlington, still dominate the seedings for the Tees Active Limited sponsored Stockton-on-Tees Junior Open. With Paul Drinkhall, Darius Knight and Gavin Evans all on international duty, Darlington's Bradley Evans and David Meads take over the top two seeded positions in the boys singles with Ormesby's rising star Danny Reed in third place. The contest between this trio promises to be the main focus of attention. On Saturday, the Darlington pair are top seeds in the junior boys team event while Ormesby's Danny Reed and Damien Nicholls are in third place. On Sunday, the junior boys singles is being played and Reed is likely to need to beat both of the Darlington players to clinch the title. Nicholls leads the seeds in the cadet boys singles, while Darlington's Myles Evans and Mark Simpson are in second and third positions. The top seed in the junior girls singles is Yorkshire's Nicola White with Emma Weil from Essex in second position. Darlington's Stephanie Donnelly plays Nicola White while Ormesby's top girl Rachel Greener is drawn to play Rebecca Russell. In the cadet girls singles, Rachel Greener meets Rachel Emmerson from Essex, while in the cadet girls team event, Rachel Greener, partnered by Jenny Lowther, is capable of making good progress. Without the highly ranked European listed players, the standard will not be quite as high as normal but the competition will be fierce. Play starts at 9am on Saturday with Saturday's finals starting at 6.30pm. On Sunday, play also starts at 9am with the main finals being played at 6pm. |