Evans takes European gold in his medal haul
Table tennis superkid Gavin Evans became the cadet boys champion of Europe after some superb performances at the European Youth Championships.
In an amazing series of triumphs in the Italian town of Terni, Evans proved what others have thought for many years — that he is simply the best in Europe at his age-group.
In 2005 Evans was crowned as European Under-12 champion, and now he has proved that he is still the best in his class by winning the cadet boys’ singles championship.
As if that was not enough, Evans brought home three more medals, two silver and a bronze, as part of an England team that had their best ever results at the pinnacle event in European junior table tennis.
Evans comes from a table tennis dynasty. His mother Linda was Buckinghamshire number one in her teens and played for Slough, while his father Rhys was one of the top coaches at Cippenham Table Tennis Club in Southend before the family moved north a few years ago to North Muskham to be closer to the National Table Tennis Academy in Nottingham.
His brothers Bradley and Myles have also represented England.
Evans’ victory, though, was hard won and he came to the brink of defeat twice before even reaching the semi-final.
In the last 16 Evans let a two- game lead slip to 2-3 before recovering to win the sixth game 13-11 and then the decider 11-7 against Frenchman Quentin Robinot.
His quarter-final performance, however, was even worse against Luca Fucec. Once again Evans raced into a two-game lead only to be pegged back to 2-2 and then 3-3.
The big-hitting Croatian was giving Evans all sorts of trouble and when Fucec stood 10-6 up in the seventh game Evans was right on the brink.
He needed to win every one of the next four points or he was out. But champions have that little bit extra and Evans chose that time to step up yet another gear and, hitting the ball harder than before, climbed back to 10-10 and eventually won the game 14-12.
European cadet table tennis is on a high at the moment with many very good players around, and Evans found another in his semi-final encounter with Simon Gauzy.
Gauzy led 2-1 in games and Evans only grabbed the fourth at 12-10. After that, though, he got up a head of steam and ran out a comfortable winner in the next two games.
This set up a final against Hampus Soderlund who Evans had already beaten in the team match against Sweden.
He just secured the first 15-13 but the next two games went to the Swede. Evans rallied to win 11-7, 11-8 and then a huge effort saw him grasp the coveted title 12-10 in the sixth.
In the boys’ doubles Evans partnered Cedric Nuytinck of Belgium. After winning three successive rounds with 3-2 scorelines they found themselves in the final against another Belgian pairing of Indeherberg and Vanrossome but had to settle for silver.
Gavin’s other silver medal came from the team event, where England lost narrowly to France in the final.
The bronze medal came in the cadet mixed doubles when Evans partnered the new European cadet girls’ champion Petrissa Solja of Germany to a place in the semi-final where they lost to a French pair.
