Fixtures Provides Insights Into Looming Closed Championship

Fixtures in open grade are taking a break for two weeks to make way for the Rockhampton Table Tennis Association’s annual closed championships that will wind up at the Leichhardt Park playing centre next Tuesday night.

In the top-grade fixtures the team lead by Matthew Pettett is out in front and whilst he and his team mates, Joel Gifford, Linda O’Sullivan and Dave Milverton are enjoying the seven-point cushion the outfit has benefitted from a few lucky breaks during the first five rounds of the comp which has four-player teams participating in two separate sections with their positive results aggregated.

Pettett will start as favourite in the prestigious men’s open singles at the closed titles even though in the last fixture bout he went down to the solid game provided by Rayden Smith 12-10, 11-8, 12-10. This result came on top of the win over Pettett by Smith at the premier event of the recent Rocky Open Championships and whilst Smith will start the city’s closed as second seed in the major event these results demonstrate that if this pair make it to the gold medal match a great clash could easily unfold.

With a couple of the city’s ‘leading ladies’ in Kelsey Pettett and Erica Clarke, who have both won the women’s open singles in the past, not currently participating in local weekly activities due to family commitments it appears that the best chances to impress in the women’s open singles rests with Ann-Louise Stewart and Monica Deeth. However, with multiple previous winner of this event Pam Clarke in the draw one should never say never and Linda O’Sullivan has been hitting the ball quite well lately and in with a chance to impress.   

Both Stewart and Deeth failed to register wins in the last fixture outing but that is quite understandable considering the on-table power difference between the better male players and the leading females. For many years the city’s club has included better female players in the male dominated top grade weekly fixtures and this has proven very successful in keeping many participants’ games competitive against their counterparts in inter-city clashes including open tournaments.   

In last week’s fixture Stewart lost to improving junior Cooper Bulow over four good quality sets before going down to James O’Sullivan across five competitive games where she had an opportunity after enjoying a two-one lead. Deeth played quite well when pitted against a very strong opponent in Dane Coughlan and won the open set before her Coughlan won the next three including the fourth at 13-11. In another entertaining clash Deeth narrowly failed to upstage Jakob Baker and bowed out 9-11, 10-12, 14-12, 9-11.           

The event that will no doubt attract plenty of interest at the city’s annual closed titles

will be the veteran’s singles with recent victors in James O’Sullivan and Ann-Louise Stewart pretty much sharing favouritism for the gold medal going by the last few years outcomes where they have taken it in turns in winning. Whilst there are a few other strong contenders in the frame, including Monica Deeth and Joel Gifford who are occupying the other seeded spots, any good effort by others on the night may secure a victory.ockin