THE first week of the season in the Weymouth and District League proved promising for Budmouth, with all five of their teams winning their opening fixtures.

The newly-promoted A team enjoyed a nail-biting 21-19 success at home to experienced campaigners Shipton Gorge A in Division One.

Evergreen Gil Roberts was on top form for the visitors, as he rolled back the years to see off the young pretenders Sam Millar and Tom Cherry – both in five close games.

However, Millar and Cherry both beat Terry Whitworth and Miranda Edwardes, and with Lily Cherry chipping in with two vital legs, the match score was 18-18 before the deciding doubles.

Edwardes and Whitworth will play far worse and win doubles matches this season, but they found the Budmouth boys in sparkling form and went down 12-14 in the fourth leg of an exhilarating contest to give Budmouth A a 21-19 victory overall.

The new Budmouth E team of Snigdha Maganti, April Heasman and Erin Stow found themselves pitted against another new team of youngsters to the league from STEPS Youth Club.

The experience gained by the girls in county tournaments proved crucial in a match closer than the 30-5 scoreline sugg- ests.

Maganti was in fine form for the home side not dropping a leg to get the girls off to a fine start.

Budmouth C, newly promoted to Division Two, were up against Preston A.

Jamie Blair played some excellent table tennis in his first two matches to beat both Roger Lovell and Derrick Shilliday 3-0, but in his third match he lost the first two legs to Eddie Chapman.

However, Blair came back to take the next two to set up a tense final leg, which Chapman took 11-5.

Moses Lewis was the star of the show for Budmouth C, winning all three of his games and with James Green recovering from a 3-0 defeat by Shilliday to beat Lovell and Chapman, Budmouth C ran out 25-14 winners.

The other two Budmouth teams started their campaigns with away victories.

Budmouth B were far too strong for newly-promoted Colliton C thanks to the ever-improving Ben Graham, Brad Burroughs and Daren Graham, who will surely be title challengers come the end of the season.

Budmouth D won a tight en-counter with Wyke C 23-13 but the youngsters certainly did not have things their own way thanks to the experienced Roy Sharp who produced a stellar performance to beat Ethan Gear in five legs.

With a maximum from Will Jolliffe and a first ever win for Eddie Knell, Budmouth D closed out a very encouraging first week of the season.

Elsewhere in the league, there were wins for current Division One champions Wyke A and Land Registry.

In addition to the Budmouth teams, there were also wins in Division Two for Preston C and Springfield B.

Another team of school youngsters, All Saints, got off to a winning start in Division Three, beating the ‘golden oldies’ of Pilgrims B.

Relegated Wyke D had an encouraging start to their life in Division Three with a strong win over Preston D.