Craig Gascoyne faces Gotland’s Hakan Ahlgren for a place in the final (00729966)

JERSEY continued their fine form on the table tennis tables yesterday with Craig Gascoyne and Nicola Duke winning through to tomorrow’s men’s and women’s semi-finals respectively.

At the Idrottscentre in Godby, Gascoyne now faces Gotland’s Hakan Ahlgren for the third time this week, they have both won and lost a match against each other already, while Duke bids to oust Gotland’s Annika Ahlgren for a place in the final.

Jersey coach Clive Hansford said: ‘We’re delighted we have two semi-finalists and hopefully we can get some more today as we are involved in the men’s, women’s and mixed doubles tournaments.

‘Because we won the team silver medal Craig and Nicola were seeded three and two respectively in the individual competitions and that helped them avoid most of the dangerous players until the latter stages.

‘Craig did play a couple of dodgy games along the way but in truth he came across nothing that he could not handle.

‘Nicola and Craig are competing in the Island Games for the first time and it’s extremely pleasing that they have both reached the semi-finals.

‘Nicola is well chuffed and it’s no more than she deserves. She pulled the iron out of the fire a couple of times and she has beaten a couple of very good players along the way too.’

Should Duke progress to the final she would meet Guernsey’s Dawn Morgan or Gotland’s Evelina Carlsson.

If Gascoyne wins his semi he will face Guernsey’s Garry Dodd or Aland’s Johann Pettersson, the latter who is a former Swedish international once ranked 16 in Europe and who has won every match so far in this tournament for his now adopted island.

Dodd had to overcome a stubborn Josh Band in his last 16 match. The 16-year-old De La Salle College student gave a fine account of himself and he was very unlucky not to have taken the match to a deciding fifth game after losing a 10-8 advantage in the fourth.

Band won his last 32 match 3-1 against Jim Berbo of Aland having won his three group matches and dropping just a game in the process.

Max Tupper (15) matched Band’s group win record, but without dropping a game, only to then be eliminated in the first round of the knock-out.

Trevor Le Febvre missed the knock-out stages after losing out on a countback by just one game in his group.

Lefebvre’s mother Kay and 13-year-old Helen Liron (13) both successfully came through two sets of group matches after some solid victories.

Liron then slipped out in the last 16 and Lefebvre in the quarter-finals, the latter against Duke’s semi-final opponent tomorrow, Ahlgren.

Hansford add: ‘The youngsters have had some cracking matches too and they can all be proud of their efforts. This type of competition can only help make them better players; it’s a really good learning experience for all of them.’

Mixed pairs through to last 16
All three Jersey mixed doubles table tennis pairings came through their groups to qualify for the last 16 late this morning.

Men’s individual semi-finalist Craig Gascoyne and Kay Lefebvre defeated their Isle of Wight and Saaremaa opponents but an 11-9 defeat in the deciding fifth game against Gotland’s Johann Eriksson and E Carlsson resulted in them finishing second in their group.

Trevor Lefebvre and women’s individual semi-finalist Nicola Duke had no problems in their group winning all their matches against opponents from the Isle of Man, Faroe Islands and Aland and it was a similar story for Jersey’s youngest pairing of Josh Band and Helen Liron.

The teenagers recorded 3-1 victories against Guernsey’s Paul Hansworth and Kate Stubbington and Greenland’s Maliek Kleist and Karliinannguaq Lundblad before coming from a game down to win a fifth game decider 11-8 against Aland’s Bengt and Ida Lindqvist.

The draw for the last 16 has kept all three Jersey’s mixed pairings apart.