Minor Premiers Toppled in Classic Grand Final Battle

The grand final in open grade at the city’s home of table tennis on Leichhardt Park

produced some good quality matches with a few surprises and a defeat to the minor

premiership outfit that actually lead the competition for most of the third season of the

year.

Whilst the combination of Rayden Smith, Erica Nolan, Chris Leitner and Jeffrey Jordan

finished the regular season at the top of the leaderboard few people would have classified

the contingent as outright favourites for the flag once the final make-up was established

after the semi-finals one week earlier. Whilst Smith’s outfit posted a good win in the

play-off for the final so did the team they needed to beat in the GF - Matthew Pettett,

Monica Deeth, Linda O’Sullvan and Julien Wright

Whilst the teams are made up of four players in this competition sub-teams are created

with the first and second player from each side playing a stand-alone match as do the

third and fourth player and the scores are amalgamated.

The Pettett/Deeth combination proved to be quite lethal when they took on Smith and

Nolan. They both turned on one of their best performances of the season to oust the

minor premiers by four rubbers to one, and that was Smith’s four-set win over Deeth. The

victor’s doubles combination on the night was exceptionally strong with Deeth’s ability

to keep the ball in play right on song as it was when she outed Nolan in their singles bout.

Any hope of Smith posting a win over fellow competition frontrunner Pettett was dashed

early in their encounter when Smith’s racquet broke and he was forced to play with a

replacement which he was not familiar with.

In the other half of this fixture Linda O’Sullivan opened the scoring with a straight sets

win over Jeff Jordan and then Chis Leitner levelled the score sheet with a 3/0 win over

Julien Wright. The doubles tie went in favour of Leitner and Jordan and then Jordan

created a very impressive win over Wright over five long games to set his side up with a

3/1 lead.

It came down to the clash between O’Sullivan and Leitner to establish whether Pettett’s

outfit would be crowned premiers without the need for a count-back of games as a

victory by Leitner would force that scenario. Based on the season’s for and against

averages most onlookers would consider Leitner to be favoured to win this contest,

however finals can produce unexpected outcomes and O’Sullivan prevailed in a classic

encounter 7-11, 13-11, 11-5, 5-11, 14-12. As a consolation for Leitner, even if he would

have beaten his opponent, the opposition would have won on the count-back.

Julien Wright only joined the fixture at the start of the second season this year and

already he has been on a premiership winning team last week and in his initial season he

partnered Allan Clarke in a two-a-side fixture in the club’s second division where they

won the silver medals. Wright should not feel dejected when he narrowly failed to beat

his opposite number in the GF in Jeff Jordan, who also entered the fixture last season, as

his performances since taking up the sport seriously have been creditable including

returning some impressive performances in fixture matches and at tournaments.