DETO table tennis players achieve first division championship in Drenthe

In the last competition match – against Emmen’s first team – a 6-4 victory would have sufficed, but DETO even managed to achieve a 7-3 victory on its own table. The champion team consists of Erik van der Haar, Arjen Koops, Gerard Roosendaal and Rudi Timmerman.

Exciting progression

It turned out that it was not yet a done deal in the De Eendracht sports hall on Monday evening. Although the home team quickly established a 3-0 lead, the next two points went to Emmen. And several matches followed an exciting course before the victory could be secured.

Erik van der Haar won the opening match convincingly against René van den Brug and later in the evening had little trouble with Jaap Kindermans and Herman Lubbers. Van der Haar thus concluded a wonderful season with a winning percentage of no less than 93% (only two defeats). This evening he was well supported by ‘good old’ Gerard Roosendaal who also remained undefeated, but could only conquer Kindermans in his first match with great difficulty in five games. However, Roosendaal grew into the match and tied Lubbers – to whom he had lost in Emmen – to the victory cart. And then he also defeated Van den Brug, whose effective attacking game he was able to counter well. Roosendaal ended this competition with a winning percentage of almost 60%.

Just as much as teammate Rudi Timmerman, who only managed one victory this evening. He quickly pushed Lubbers aside, but Timmerman always fell just short against Van den Brug and had insufficient control over the Emmen native’s effective play. Kindermans also managed to subdue Timmerman – with good defensive play and a quick switch to attack – although it took four exciting games.

Occasional duo

In this last match, the doubles were not played – as usual and undefeated in this competition – by Erik van der Haar and Gerard Roosendaal, but by the occasional duo Arjen Koops (a fourth player may be used for the doubles) and Rudi Timmerman. They took a 2-0 lead in games, but saw Herman Lubbers and Jaap Kindermans come alongside in a spectacular match and even take the win in the decisive fifth game – after giving away a 10-7 lead.