Race for Season 4 Fixtures Semi-final Spots Heats Up

With representative commitments completed for the year the city’s more competitive table tennis players still have the end of season fixtures to look forward to prior to the club’s open grade comp winding up with finals early in December. With only this week’s round remaining prior to the two weeks of finals matches the stage is set for an exciting finish although one outfit has shot ahead on the leaderboard to take favouritism for the major flag.

Two divisions will be created after this last round based on the points table so the teams that finished in the second-half of the leaderboard will still have an opportunity to pick up a trophy whilst the sides in the top-half will be trying hard to win the bigger ‘sheep station’. At the top end of the points table the combination of Joel Coughlan, Ann-Louise Stewart and Oliver Wright has set up a solid three-point lead over teams consisting of Matthew Pettett, Pam Clarke and Hilton Kane as well as Dane Coughlan, Warun Wilkinson and Patricia Green who are tied up in second spot.

To add interest, when the top four needs to be established after this week’s fixtures, the fourth spot is currently being shared by Rayden Smith and Chris and Helga Leitner and Judd Carr, Erica Nolan and Linda O’Sullivan only one point in arrears. And, the next two sides are sitting equal only another notch behind so some big wins this week can affect the outcome leading into the finals.     

There were some classic clashes in last week’s round in a fixture where each player takes part in two doubles ties and then finishes off with one singles rubber – against their opposite number.

When two top-liners took to the court Rayden Smith fought off a brilliant challenge provided by Dane Coughlan. Smith looked to be in a comfortable position when he won the opening two games to nine and four points respectively. Coughlan kicked into action to post victories to six and five points to create a decider. In this final rubber Smith had to play well to hold out his well credentialled challenger 11-8. In the same match Helga Leitner came from behind to put a great win on Patricia Green 9-11, 8-11, 11-7, 12-10, 11-9.

When two team captains clashed leading junior Judd Carr fought off yet another incredible challenge by James O’Sullivan 11-8 in the deciding fifth set after this pair went game for game with O’Sullivan taking the honours by a few points in the opening set. Geoff Geddes bounced back from a disappointing campaign at the inter-city against Bundaberg only a few days earlier when he had to dig deep to repel the consistent plays of Allan Clarke to post a win over five long sets after he was in trouble being behind two sets to one.

In a competition where the doubles ties are extremely important to the end results as three ties are staged in each match there was an abundance of interesting outcomes including the fact that on this outing the winning teams got off to great starts in victories in most of their encounters.