Corby's Sam takes silver at national championships

Corby's Sam Wilson picked up a silver medal on his senior national table tennis championships debut.

The Corby Smash ace finished as runner-up in the under-21 men's today (Friday) at the David Ross Sports Village in Nottingham.

Wilson began the day as second seed but had a tough time against talented youngster Louis Price in the quarter-finals, eventually coming through 4-2 (13-11, 11-8, 11-8, 7-11, 6-11, 11-5) in the face of a comeback by the young Bristolian.

His semi-final win over Zak Cantor was a highly entertaining match with Cantor’s attack against Wilson’s defence.

After splitting the first two games Wilson became a brick wall, with everything Cantor threw at him coming back - including one amazing return from the other side of the barrier with Cantor only able to watch the ball fly past him. The final score was 4-1 (11-9, 1-11, 11-5, 11-9, 11-7).

That set up a final clash with Luke Savill, which saw two very different styles come face-to-face with Wilson’s defensive backhand coming under serious scrutiny from Savill’s looping forehand.

Savill combined his attacking shots with delicate, short touches which were too much for Wilson to handle in a 4-0 (12-10, 11-8, 11-3, 11-9) scoreline.

Wilson told Table Tennis England: “I’m over the moon to get a silver at my first senior nationals.

"I didn’t really play well enough in the final to pull it out.

"I probably didn’t have enough in me but congratulations to Luke, he played really well.”