THE Champion of the first Natwest Jersey Open table tennis tournament is No 1 seed, Shaun Marples, who beat teenager Matthew Dodds 3-2 in an electrifying final at the Geoff Reed Centre on Sunday night.

Ranked in the top 30 in England, Marples was 5-3 down to the younger man in the last set, before he held his nerve and ran out winner.

‘I think that Shaun’s experience told in the end but it was a fantastic final,’ said the president of the JTTA, Chris Band afterwards.

‘I never expected to get through to the final; I thought I’d lose to Craig (Gascoyne), so beating him 3-2 was probably my highlight of the tournament,’ said Dodds, from Sheffield, and ranked 28th at under-18 level in the UK, afterwards.

The semi-final match he played against the Island’s table tennis development officer, Gascoyne, was, if anything, a better spectacle than the final, as both players complemented each other with huge powerful loops and smashes from the back court which in turn brought a great deal of applause from a large and appreciative audience.

Meanwhile Marples had had a slightly easier semi-final as he overpowered Guernsey’s Scott Romeril 3-1.

In the earlier rounds Jersey’s Josh Band almost caused the upset of the tournament by taking Dodds to five games having, at one stage, been 2-1 up.

Dodds eventually took the match 3-2, 11-8 in the fifth.

Jersey seniors Paul Marshall and Dave Cronin both played superbly to reach the quarter-finals but were eliminated by the two respective finalists.

The women’s Open singles was won by Rachel Pilgrim from Warwickshire who beat Josie Bruce from Scotland 3-1.

The initial two games were nail biters with Bruce taking the first, 12-10, and Pilgrim taking the second 13-11.

Earlier on in the day Pilgrim had also won the girls’ U21 title beating Corrina Bebbington from Cheshire 3-1 in another entertaining final.

The Island’s talented 11-year-old Helen Liron played extremely well and gained valuable experience in her matches against both the finalists.

In the U21 boys’ tournament Jersey’s top juniors Josh Band and Chris Corfield played superbly in reaching the quarter-finals.

Corfield eventually lost to Dodds.

Band met the experienced Liam Tildsey from Cheshire and beat his opponent after a gruelling five games to reach the semis.

Band’s opponent was Marples, whose vast experience was too much for the 13-year-old who bowed out in straight games.

The final was contested between Marples and Dodds with the former stamping his authority on the match from the start and finally ran out the winner by three games to love.

In all there were over 50 competitors, with half of them travelling to Jersey from the UK.