Young table tennis star Toby Ellis impresses at National Senior Championships

Toby Ellis recently took up the invitation to take part in the Senior National Championships Qualifier with no expectations.

Held at the David Ross Sports Centre at Nottingham University and with 100 players competing to qualify, it was a fantastic event to be part of.

Toby, 14, from LRGS, performed superbly and after playing his matches in his group of eight against adult players, he came second in his group.

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This put him in the top 16 at the end of day one. It also gave him a pass through to the seeding stage on the Sunday as the top four of each of the eight groups went through to the next

round.

Sunday brought a tougher day for the youngster, with the best of the best left, Toby beat two more players, finishing a respectable 25th overall out of the 72 men that

entered.

Toby didn’t qualify for the Senior Nationals this time, but it was a strong start for the teenager who is currently on track to qualify for the Cadet and Junior National Championships and the National Cadet Cup, and is currently ranked No. 19 in the Under-21s in

England.

Another local boy who took the challenge of the qualifier on was 16-year-old Matthew Westworth, who attends Morecambe Bay

Academy.

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A tough group saw Matthew play some great table tennis on day one but he didn’t manage to get through to Sunday.

Elsewhere, Toby’s sister Bethany Ellis won the Halton 2 Star Table Tennis England Tournament held at Halton Stadium

Widnes.

Bethany played some aggressive yet controlled table tennis for the duration of the competition and managed to not drop a single set throughout.

This is now the second time Bethany has secured the Cadet Trophy at still only 12 years old, in what was a promising start to the year for the local youngsters.

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