WITH Wombats already confirmed as champions of division two of the Brewin Dolphin Securities-sponsored Malvern Table Tennis League, attention switched to the battle for second place.

Ledbury Exhaust has been catching up with their games in hand recently and they picked up maximum points from their clash with CSSC Nomads. Nomads had only two players on the night but both put up a good fight.

Dave Backhurst gained the only victory against Ray Cooke and Geoff Davies was two sets up against John Meredith before John fought back to win in five. Stewart Moss was in fine form, winning both his games without dropping a set.

This result was not enough for Ledbury as defeat to Poolbrook Juniors presented their opponents with the runners-up spot and promotion to division one.

The Poolbrook trio of Matthew Lang, Mark Griffiths and Graham Collier stormed to a 7-0 lead. Matt required five sets to beat Ray Cooke and had to come from two sets down to defeat Stewart Moss, with Graham's 12-10, 15-13, 11-8 victory over John Meredith was much closer than the straight sets scoreline suggests.

Ledbury rallied to win the last three games of the night as Stewart beat Graham, who had won his previous two matches in the league, 11-6 in the fifth set and John beat Matt 13-11 in the fifth. The match of the night was however saved for the end with Ray overcoming Mark 20-18 in the fifth.

With John Meredith unavailable, Ledbury only had two players for their trip to Manor Park to face Travellers. Stewart won twice and Ray once but neither could beat the in-form Bob Atyeo. Ken Hipwell also won once for the home team.

The decisive game of the night was the doubles between Bob and Martin Snee and Ray and Stewart. A game which swung first one way and then the other was typified by the deciding set, in which the Travellers duo were 7-1 up, lost eight points in a row and then bounced back to win 12-10.

YMCA Vulcans cemented their fourth place with a 7-3 victory at Bromyard. John Hunt was, as usual, in fine form for Logics, winning all three of his singles games but two wins apiece for Ray Holroyd, Chris Hughes and Beryl Shammon, plus doubles success for Chris and Ray, gave the points to the visitors.

RESULTS: Bromyard Logics 3, YMCA Vulcans 7; Ledbury Exhaust 3, Poolbrook Juniors 7; Ledbury Exhaust 9, CSSC Nomads 1; Manor Park Travellers 7, Ledbury Exhaust 3.