Action Packed June Looms for RTTA Players

The count down is on for the annual Rockhampton Open Table Tennis Championships that is being staged at the Leichhardt Park playing centre on Friday evening 19^th June through to Sunday afternoon 21^st.

It is hoped that good numbers will line up for the Chauvel Industrial Services open singles and doubles and ratings events as well as the Bolsover Radiology competitions across the various sections from under-11 through to over-80 as advertised in the 46-event program.    

June will be a busy month for volunteers at the Rocky association. The local play-offs for the Queensland Schools Championships are being held on Friday 11^th and record entries have been received for this year’s comp to sort out which school-teams will represent the region at the state finals so this promises to be a hectic day for both the players and organisers. To cap off the bustling month the ever-popular Annual General Meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday evening 23^rd.  

On the local fixture scene in open grade the leaderboards are still quite bunched in both divisions and plenty of time remains for teams to find their way to the top-end as the fixture will wind up at the end of the school term.

In the latest instalment once again there were some close finishes in individual clashes with a lot of the cliff-hangers in the second section. Tom Tonkin, a late-starting junior who is making his way into the sport, subbed and really took the game up to Sajan Baral when they met. The youngster, who represented the city at the recent under-19 state championships, played well to create a chance for a good victory when he lead the clash two games to one. However, he bowed to experience and went down in the next two sets but registered a great effort overall.

In Baral’s other singles bout he got a good supply of points when pitted against Oliver Wright but went down in four very close games. In other narrow four-game finishes Geoff Geddes prevailed over both Pam Clarke and Patricia Green. Hilton Kane did the same over Green but that situation was reversed when he played Clarke in a match where all rubbers, including the doubles, were decided over four games.

Helga Leitner and Joe Clifton engaged in an epic battle where Clifton looked the goods after winning the opening two sets with close scorelines. But in a clash between two players who play with pimpled rubber that affects the spin and speed on the ball Leitner wore her opponent down to win the remaining three available games 11-9, 11-7, 14-12 to fall over the line.

In the top division most results went to plan with the biggest surprise being returned by Glen McDonald who played consistently to upset the attacking moves of Judd Carr to post a 16-14, 13-11, 19-17 victory. Ann-Louise Stewart and Jakob Baker engaged in an epic hard-hitting battle where Stewart won 3-1 after dropping the opening set where all scores were close.