Mark and Gavin can head to Liverpool for the Select tournament in a couple of weeks time in the knowledge that they are the best under 12s in Ireland at the moment. Mark and Gavin contested the Ulster Open Under 12s boys final. But it was no walk in the park. Mark had to overcome the in-form Daniel Keenan who led 2-1(11-8, 7-11, 6-11) at one point before Mark staged a comeback to win the final two sets 11-3 11-9. The final set was a closely fought affair with Mark just shading it in a superb match. Gavin had to beat David Budden who won the first Irish ranking to progress to the final. He was superb in the first two sets winning 11-8,11-6 before dropping the third set. In a tight fourth set Gavin won 11-9. For the record Mark won the final 11-8,10-12,11-5,12-10. An added bonus was that Neal reached the quarters as well losing out to Daniel Keenan.
In the cadets Mark reached the semi finals at the expense of Number One seed Jonathon Ray (15-13, 7-11, 10-12, 11-6, 11-6),before losing to Keith Knox. Andrew Holohan finished 8th in the cadet losing to Shane Dolan in the quarters. Gavin lost to surprise package Andrew Loane in the Last 16 where Niall also lost out to Keith Knox. Shane Foster lost in the previous round 3-1 to Ross Griffin and Conor Morgan and Neal had lost in earlier rounds.
The Junior Boys saw a great performance from Andy Boland to finish fifth. He was a bit disappointed to lose out in the quarters to Conor Fahy 3-1 but produce some great table tennis to win 3-0 against Sean Givernaud( who had lost to Conor Nolan 3-0 in the quarters) and beat Peter Graham 3-2(4-11, 11-7, 11-8, 10-12, 11-4) in the play-off for 5/6. Na Ning won the juniors beating Conor Nolan in the final but John Murphy had put up a great display in the semi when he had pushed Ning all the way 13-11,8-11, 6-11 14-12, 5-11. john finished third beating Conor Fahy also in five.