Mark O'Flynn won the Ulster Junior Open under 12 title at Newtonabbey beating Patrick Guy in a thrilling five set final. Mark played superb table tennis showering Patrick with aggressive topspin for the first two sets. At 10-8 up in the third Mark looked like winning 3-0 but Patrick staged a fightback winning the next two sets. In the fifth set Mark composed himself to once again take the initative.He served well and returned superbly to win 11-5
In what was a very good tournament Mark had a tough draw facing Keith Knox in the quarter finals.This was a superb match in which Keith battled strongly having beaten Mark at the Primary Schools tournament a few weeks ago.In the end Mark took control of the fifth set winning 11-3 but this entertaining encounter was only one of the many exciting matches in the Under 12s tournament.In the semi final Mark beat Niall McDonnell 11-6, 13-11, 11-6 to reach his second Irish Ranking final this season
Gavin Maguire lost to David Budden in another close match in the quarter finals.Having been 2-0 down Gavin came back to win the next two sets before losing 15-13 in the fifth. David Budden went on to play another close match in the semi with Patrick Guy only losing out deuce in the fifth. Gavin had a good day in the fourteen getting to the last sixteen only losing 3-1 to Shane Dolan.
Conor Nolan won the Junior boys beating Colin byrne in a tense final. Again Conor was two sets to nil up and surrendered the lead only to win deuce in the fifth.John Murphy lost to Colin in the semi. Andy Boland lost to Andrew Blanch in a close five setter in the last sixteen. Brian Farrell had a good win over Conor Fahy in the first round before losing to Leeroy Carlyon in three sets.