Table Tennis: Ireland Under-15 Boys team Excel in Portugal

Ireland’s Under 15 Boys team of Paul McCreery (Belfast), Sam Hanley (Dublin) and Ashley Robinson (Tyrone), with Jing Yi Gao as NPC, caused a number of major upsets for the stronger nations at the Portugese Youth Open Championships at the weekend, to finish in a very impressive fourth place.

This result sends out a very important message to future Irish teams, that we can actually win against the top performing countries. To beat the top three European table tennis nations of France, Sweden and Germany in one day is some achievement indeed.

To put the result in perspective:

• Ireland finished in 4th place
• England A finished in 12th place with Liam Pitchford (English No.2) and Sean Cullen (English No.4) on the team
• England B finished in 16th place, with Daniel Lowe (English No.3) and Zak Zilensnik (English No.6) on the team
• Scotland’s team of Sean Doherty and Calum Main finished in 21st place.

Well done to the players and to Jing Yi for an inspirational performance.

Further details can be found at: http://www.irishtabletennis.com/crossfire/parsepage.php?pageid=42&fid=itta