Inter-provincial Championships, 21st February 2010

Three Club Donic players represented Leinster this year at the Inter-provincial Championships. Tom Davis and Donie Mullally played on the Under 12 Inter-provincial Championships, along with Barry O'Toole and Conor Gallagher from Ballyroan. Conor Mullally played on the Under 14 team, along with Ryan Farrell, Ciaran Kelly and Kevin Hutchinson.

The Under 12 team, unfortunately, could not compete with the strong Munster and Ulster teams. However, after a 4-4 draw against Connacht, Donie Mullally took the winning match against Eddie Ditichburn, resulting in third place for the Leinster Under 12 boys team.

The Under 14 boys team had three very comfortable wins over Munster, Connact and Ulster, which resulted in Leinster taking gold.

Overall Leinster won the Under 17 girls and the Under 14 boys and were narrowly defeated in the Under 12 girls, meaning that Ulster once again took first place overall.

National Championships 2010

The National Championships took place in the DCU in April 2010. Tom Davis had the best tournament of his season, beating Martin Ditchburn in his first round. Later in the tournament, he went on to beat Barry O'Toole in the last 16, resulting in him being in the last 8 in Ireland for the first time. However, Tom wasn't happy enough to finish there and he went on to beat Mark Gordon in the Quarter Finals, leading him into the semi-finals. He came up against tought competition then with Eric Shekleton. Tom took the first set comfortably but unfortunately couldn't match up to Eric in the second set and Eric went on to take the next three sets. Conor Mullally also had a super tournament, landing himself in the last 8 also. As quoted in the Evening Herald, "Match of the weekend came in the cadet boys quarter-finals, when Club Donic's Conor Mullally raced to a two-set lead against top seed Ryan Farrell, with some astonishing rallies and great back-court play. However, Farrell fought back to take the next three sets". Conor finished up with a ranking of 6th place in Ireland, however, which is no mean achievement.

Leinster Junior Close, 21st February 2010

Club Donic had their most successful tournament on 21st February 2010 this year. Pictured below our 9 of our winners. In the Under 12 girls, Lara managed to take fourth place and Aisling took fifth place in the Under 10 girls (a great achievement for her first tournament). Our under 10 boys had a terrific tournament with Donie taking first place, Evin taking third and Shane taking fifth place.

Niall also had a great tournament, taking second place in the plate competition of the Under 12 boys. Tom took second place once again in the Under 12 boys with a great win over Barry O'Toole from Ballyroan in the semi-final. Eoin McDermott took second place in the plate competition of the Under 14 boys, while Conor Mullally beat Ciaran Kelly in the semi-final of the Under 14 boys and led himself to a Club Donic final, meeting Shi Zhao Li. Shi Zhao beat Conor in the final in straight sets.

All round, this has been the best tournament that Club Donic has had to date and we look forward to many more successes like these again.

Shi Zhao Li Takes Firsist Place at the Irish Junior Classification

Pictured above is Sean (a new member of Club Donic) who took first place in the Under 14s, beating Ryan Farrell in the final. Sean had a terrific tournament after getting into the top 8 in the Under 17 tourrnament the day before. Well done Sean. Congratulations must also go to Donie, who got second place in the Under 12 plate and second place in the Under 10 competition. Well done Donie, and our biggest surprise was Evin, who got second in the Under 10 plate competition in his first ever tournament. Well done to you Evin. Shane, who was also competing at his first tournament, played terrific, taking a set of Ross McGarry (who eventually went on to win the competition) in the first round. Well done to you Shane. One other player who must be singled out is Dara who just lost to Kevin Hutchinson 12-10 in the fifth set. Kevin then went on to take fourth place in the Under 14s event. Well done to all who competed in the tournament.

Leinster Junior Classification, 2009

Club Donic had a terrific tournament at the Leinster Junior Classification on 24-25 October 2009. In the boys Under 12 competition, Tom Davis was very unfortunate to come up against Kevin Hutchinson in the quarter-finals. However, Tom went onto win all his matches in the 5-8 play-off, giving him a ranking of 5th in Leinster. Donie Mullally had an easier run to the semi-finals. However, he closely lost to Barry O'Toole and came in third place (see picture below).

In the Under 14 boys competition, James Carr was very unlucky to lose his first group, but went on to take first place in the plate competition. Dara Gray came up against his club mate Conor Mullally in the quarter finals and he finished up ranked 8th in the under 14 boys. In the semi-finals, Conor was up against Ryan Farrell and Shi Zhao Li was up against Ciaran Kelly from Alsaa. Shi Zhao Li had a comfortable win over Ciaran, but unfortunately Conor was narrowly beaten by Ryan. Conor then played Ciaran for 3rd and 4th play-off and beat Ciaran 3-1. Zhi Zhao Li once again had a comfortable win over Ryan Farrell in the final and he took first place in the competition.

In the under 17 boys competition, Zhi Zhao Li once again cruised to the final, beating Cory O'Rourke from St. Johns along the way. In the final, he was faced with Maciek Symanski. This was a terrific match and Zhao Li managed to come back in the fifth set to win the final (see below for pictures).