14/12/2025
2 weeks ago on the 28th-30th November, the Oxford Brookes Table Tennis team played in the biggest BUCS table tennis event of the year, the BUCS Individual Championships.
On day 1 Jared and Nicolas played the doubles where they were able to win both games comfortably to win their group. They then went on to beat an Oxford doubles pairing in the R64 but unfortunately lost in a close game in the R32 against a Loughborough pairing.
Day 2 were the singles group stages. This year used a new format where groups were increased from 4 to 5 with only 2 going through into the main draw and the removal of a consolation draw. Unfortunately for Nicolas and Lucas, they were grouped with seeded players and knocked out the groups with Nicolas facing off against Dennis Lin, the son of the Olympic gold medalist Deng Yaping, and Lucas facing off against Danny Bajwa, 5th ranked player in Scotland and Scottish national team player. Nicolas ended up winning 2 matches and Lucas ended up winning 1.
As for Jared, although he didn’t have a seeded group, his matches were still tough, playing players from Cambridge, Bath, Reading and Bristol. After Jared fired up his forehand, he was able to win 3 matches coming second in his group and moved onto the main draw.
On day 3, Jared started the day with a 3-0 walkover against a player from KCL in the R128. But then in the R64 he played the Number 1 seed Ben Piggott. Although losing, the performance by Jared was unbelievable hitting unreal forehands and backhands.
Although Nicolas and Lucas lost in the groups and Jared lost to the number 1 seed, they all had a great time at Nottingham and hopefully the Brookes team can come back stronger next year having more players advancing further into the tournament.
📷
