Anjali Singh and Lily Parke secured the top two spots in U21 & U19 Girls’
The first Open of 2026 saw record entries for the Munster tournament. Held on 17-18 January, players travelled from far and wide to the MTU Arena in Cork. It was great to see so many making the long journey from Ulster, and they made their presence felt!
In the Senior Men’s event, the all top 3 spots went to Ulster, with sixth seed Alex Lo defeating fifth seed Christopher Allsop in the final, and Toby Caldwell sharing third place with Igor Chamilla. Sadly, top seed Peadar Sheridan had to withdraw due to a medical emergency: we wish him a full and speedy recovery and hope to see him back on the tables soon. However, this takes nothing away from Alex’s excellent run to the final, where he came from 2-0 down to beat Christopher in a real nail-biter. Alex also took the U21 title, beating Leinster’s Ryan Li, Toby once again securing joint third place.
On the ladies’ side, Anjali Singh mirrored Alex’s achievements, taking both the Senior and U21 Women’s titles. She also won the U19 Girls’, making it a flawless clean sweep in all her events. Lily Parke secured second place in both the U19s and U21s, highlighting Ulster’s strength in depth at underage level.
In the U19 Boys’, Ulster once again dominated the field, taking all three top spots: 17th seed Christopher Allsop defeated his Ormeau clubmate Toby Caldwell in the final, with Jack Bailey sharing third place with Leinster’s Daniel Patterson. The U17 Boys’ saw a repeat Allsop-Caldwell final, with Christopher once again taking the spoils, with Aaditya Singh in joint third place with Ryan Li.
On the girls’ side, Lea Gal had a tremendous Open, winning both the U17 and U15 events, staging a dramatic comeback from 2-0 down in the U15 final to beat local favourite and top seed Samanta Pusinskaite. A huge well done to Jane Wilson too, who placed third in the U15 Girls’.
In the U15 Boys’, third seed Karsten Close had a great run to the final where he saved four match points to overcome Leinster’s upcoming junior Daniel Daly in the most dramatic fashion.
And last but definitely not least, Ormeau’s Jack Bailie placed second in the Restricted Singles event, narrowly losing out to Alex Melikov.
These results are fantastic, with Ulster winning every event from U15 to Senior, both male and female. A huge testament to the hard work put in every Wednesday by the Ulster squads and John Fall with his team of coaches!
Finally, thank you to Munster Table Tennis for hosting a great tournament with such generous cash prizes. Hopefully this will encourage even more entries next year!
Well done Ulster, keep up the good work!
Full results can be found here:
https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/winners.aspx?id=EE279A8D-F7C5-4C6A-B323-79270048F768
Anjali Singh, Senior Ladies’ champion
Karsten Close, U15 Boys’ winner
