London Progress delivered a triple whammy at the weekend when Rafi Marom won the All-London LJTTS Finals at Southall, Alex Fegredo, Reece Manning and Abbas Alharazi kept the Progress Club one point clear at the top of the West London National Cadet League and Jason Sugrue won the northern Ireland championships to remain the pre eminent player in Ireland. Oh, and just for good measure, Progress British League star, Darius Knight picked up the National under 21's title beating European Cadet champion Paul Drinkall in the final.
Rafi Marom: Champion of London!
Once again Rafi Marom showed what a talent he is by seeing off a strong field of opponents while at the same time battling against the dreaded winter viruses. The London Junior Scheme, now attracting ETTA national ranking points has become even more fiercely contested, and the final three playoff saw Rafi having to deal with fellow Progress rising stars, Daniel Basterfield and Terry Howe, both representing at this tournament, the West London Academy, trained by Jason Sugrue and sponsored by TTK Greenhouse. Using his usual lethal combination of block, chop, float and forehand kill, Marom proved just too clever. It was left to Basterfield and Howe to fight it out for second place. On this occasion Basterfield proved too good.
Fegredo, Manning and Alharazi hold the line
On the Sunday, the Progress cadets were back in action, only this time they had to take a few knocks. The crunch game came against Gareth Herbert's Wembley High squad, another rapidly improving TTK outfit. Alex Fegredo saw off a strong challenge from Fatlam Sadeku thus gaining revenge for his recent loss at the Chesham Christmas Tournament. But Wembley High were not to be denied. Krisanth, Jeniel and Fatlum fought back heroically and eventually claimed the match 4 sets to 2.
London Progress were under serious pressure of relinquishing the lead they had held since the start of the season. Their next encounter was against West London Academy, the very same team that had beaten them last round. Fegredo got a hammering from Tony Wilkinson and things looked bad. Cometh the moment, cometh the man. Reece Manning suddenly remembered why he was crowned Middlesex and London Under 13 champion last season. He promptly dismissed Basterfield to even the score and set up a classic finale for the day. Alex recovered to defeat Basterfield, Abbas rose to the occasion to defeat Wilkinson and Manning held firm to take Progress over the finishing line by winning over Jack Ward. Progress hold on the top spot with just two games to play in the last weekend.
In Division 2 of the Cadet League a similar tight battle has been raging only this time Barnet, led by Eli Baraty, are looking to gate-crash the party, taking advantage of a below strength Oaklands, led by master coach, Gideon Ashison. Gideon has been quietly assembling a powerful TTK squad and all his players have been competitive in all three divisions. But at the three-quarters point it looks like a three way battle between Progress, West London Academy and Barnet for honours in Division Two.
While all the junior excitement was taking place in Southall, two of London Progress's British League stars were creating some excitement of their own. Jason Sugrue played some of his best ping ever to take the Ulster Open on the Saturday, defeated the very experienced Jonathan Cowan in the final after surviving some tight matches against a Chinese contingent. At the same time, Darius Knight decided to up his game and saved two match points against Paul Drinkall to claim the National Under 21 crown in Sheffield.
With all this action at the weekend, plus the usual round of local league fixtures, it is easy to see why the unofficial slogan at Southall reads; 'London Progress never sleeps'.
