Local Schools Championships Fast Approaching as Season 2 of Fixtures Begins with a Bang

The count-down is on for the next important event hosted by the Rockhampton Table Tennis Association with this year’s edition of the Queensland School’s Championships fast approaching. The 2026 version of Central Queensland’s qualifying play-offs will take place at the Leichhardt Park playing centre on Friday 12 June while the State Finals will be staged at the South Pine Indoor Sports Centre on Monday 14 September.

Regional play-offs will also be staged at Bundaberg, Brisbane and the Gold Coast during June. All of these competitions, including the finals, are being staged earlier than in past years and it will be interesting to see if moving the event forward than the fourth school term will be as successful as the event has been previously.

Locally, the two schools that provided the most support of this event in past competitions are in the process of finalising their representative squads. Heights College (Rockhampton) and Gladstone’s Faith Baptist Christian School have again indicated very strong interest and with entries closing towards the end of this month there is still time for other schools to submit nominations to Table Tennis Queensland.

The Rockhampton High and Grammar Schools both participated in last year’s play-offs locally and it is hoped those schools and others will be able to support this annual concept again. 

Three sections will be in play again this year with the Open Division catering for students enrolled between year’s ten and twelve. The Junior Division will cater for students between year-7 and year-9 inclusive while youngsters from prep level through to year-6 will make up the Hopes Division.

A new season of fixtures in open grade hit-off last week at the city’s club and some incredibly close matches were played out. Two of the stand-out performers in last year’s local Q-Schools tournament took to the court in the top division and again put on a great show for spectators. This time around Cooper Bulow reversed the usual outcome between this pair and outlasted Judd Carr in an epic battle that was full of long hard-hitting rallies 26-24, 11-8, 5-11, 7-11, 11-9.

Jakob Baker and Glen McDonald participated in another clash that went the full distance with Baker coming out on top by a few points in the decider. This pair can both hit the ball quite hard and while accuracy can sometimes be a bit wanting there were plenty of entertaining plays on this occasion.

In the second division Julien Wright overcame some issues when pitted against Helga Leitner to win over five long games and in a clash that was even longer, he went down

12-10 in the fifth set against Chris Leitner. Geoff Geddes overcame Jeffrey Jordan in a marathon battle 10-12, 12-10, 11-13, 11-7, 11-7.