TEENAGER Richard Moss has taken an historic step on his quest for England honours by becoming the youngest men's singles champion in York table tennis history.

And he won the trophy by beating a man who is playing a key part in helping him towards that ambition - his coach.

In a tense, fast and exciting climax to York and District Table Tennis Association Closed Championships at York RI gymnasium, the England ranked 15-year-old outplayed number one seed Mick Wilcockson 21-14 22-20 in the final.

The Poppleton club youngster was 15 last September. Tony Sanderson, York's previous youngest champion, was two months short of 16 when, on another historic night in February 1980, he won the first of his seven successive men's singles titles.

Moss went home with four trophies from the weekend (men's, intermediate and junior singles and men's doubles with partner Wilcockson).

The new champion, ranked in the top ten in the England Under 15s and 30 in the Under 17s, attends coaching each week at Millthorpe School and twice a week travels to Selby to get one-to-one coaching from Wilcockson, one of the best coaches in the county and a player of National League standard. Wilcockson also takes Moss to play in tournaments all over the north of England.

"I want to get higher in the under-17s rankings and my ambition is to play table tennis for England," said the youngster, who is a pupil at Manor School.

Two weeks ago in a York League match Moss lost 21-19 in the third to Sessions club player and former York men's singles champion Wilcockson. But the youngster more than got his revenge in the men's final, often winning points with shots Wilcockson himself has coached Moss to use.

He made a terrific start, leading 4-1 after Wilcockson's opening serves. Moss built on that to stretch clear at 13-5 and although Wilcockson rallied briefly with three successive points to get within three points at 16-13 down, the teenager went on to win 21-14.

Wilcockson managed to force Moss into making a few errors in the second game and from 7-3 down levelled at ten-all then led 13-11. More than once the youngster wrong-footed his coach with clever returns.

Moss regained the lead at 15-14 but after winning the next point Wilcockson, nearly three times as old as his opponent and who played in several events at the championships, began to be troubled by pain in his right calf muscle.

But he dug in and battled point for point up to deuce before Moss, the number three seed, won the next two points to take the championship.

Wilcockson, though, went back home with four trophies - men's doubles with Moss, mixed doubles with Jill Schofield, hard bat singles and veterans' singles.

To reach the men's final Moss beat Keith Hood (Bootham Conservative Club) 5 and 3, last year's beaten finalist Brian Quinn (York RI) 5 and 18, Richard Crowther (York RI) 10 and 18, and last year's champion John Farmery (Fulford Road WMC) 17 and 20.

Wilcockson beat John Eastwood (Fulford Road WMC) 4 and 11, Kohio Takashima (Poppleton) 20-22 21-15 21-9, Tim Smith (York RI) 12 and 8, and Mick Kenyon (INL) 10 and 12.

Jill Schofield (Nestl Rowntree) retained the women' singles title, beating second seed Jeannette Eastwood (Fulford Road WMC) fairly comfortably 8 and 13 in the final.

In the semi-finals Schofield overcame Joanne Somers (Poppleton) 9 and 13, while Eastwood beat Theresa Melling (Sheperds) 11 and 11.

The trophies were presented by the Sheriff of York, Coun Janet Greenwood.

Updated: 13:03 Tuesday, February 05, 2002