Thrills & Spills: Week 1 of 2026 Closed Championships Delivers

Despite most participants playing exceptional table tennis during the first week of the annual Rocky Closed Championships the medals mostly went to the same people as last  year in the major events contested so far. The tournament will wind up this week at the Leichhardt Park playing centre with the finalisation of the men’s open singles, the open doubles and the consolation singles for those who did not make through to the main draw of the major singles events.

In the first event concluded, Ann-Louise Stewart confirmed favouritism in the women’s open singles to take out the title over the second seeded Monica Deeth 11-,9,11-9, 11-9. The play-off was an entertaining match that featured plenty of fine rallies and whilst Deeth’s consistent counter-hitting won her a lot of points to keep her in with a chance in all three games she just couldn’t win the crucial plays towards the conclusion of each and Stewart’s strong all-round plays won out.

The finalists didn’t get it all their own way during the draw and Stewart had to dig deep when pitted against Linda O’Sullivan where she won over five sets after being down by two games to one. Deeth had an even closer battle with Pam Clarke when she won 13-11 in the deciding fifth game after being down match point a few times in a clash where the combatants went game for game.        

Whilst the veteran’s events produced similar results to those of the past few years the standard of play was quite impressive. In a repeat of the last two instalments of the singles James O’Sullivan and Ann-Louise Stewart faced off in the final of the singles and O’Sullivan looked to be in the box seat to make it two years in a row when he comfortably won the opening two sets. However, Stewart was determined to repeat the results of two years ago and she stormed back into contention when she put together two high quality games. In the decider plenty of fine rallies unfolded with both players holding slight leads at various times. In an absolute cliff-hanger the score went to deuce before O’Sullivan fell over the line at 14-12.

In the semis O’Sullivan prevailed over Monica Deeth in a straight sets encounter and this was after his challenger survived a scare provided by Allan Clarke 13-11 in the decider. Deeth also had to overcome the solid game of Linda O’Sullivan who was playing well enough on the night to outlast Dave Milverton 11-9 in the fifth game of a very close encounter. On the other side of the draw Stewart beat Geoff Geddes in four tight sets in the semis after Geddes bundled out the third-seeded Joel Gifford in another very close contest.    

Top seeds James and Linda O’Sullivan combined to win the doubles and this time their victims were Stewart and Deeth, who they lost to in last year’s gold medal match. The reliability of this pairs combination and experience shone through as they won each game relatively untroubled. In the semis the victors had too much in store for Geoff Geddes and Chris Leitner while on the other side of the draw the Stewart and Deeth pairing overpowered Pam Clarke and Helga Leitner after they had outed the more fancied match-up of Joel Gifford and Dave Milverton.   

There were some great matches in the early rounds of the men’s singles draw and one to obtain plenty of attention was when Geoff Geddes scrapped in over Sajan Baral 9-11,

11-8, 11-8, 6-11, 15-13. Geddes then engaged in another marathon encounter when pitted against Cooper Bulow. This hard-hitting pair went game for game before the younger Bulow took control in the decider to book his place in the play-offs for the major title this week.

Jakob Baker also qualified for the major draw when he outlasted Glen McDonald in another five-set classic that McDonald had his chances to win when leading two games to one after dropping the opening set 16-14. Nick Green also reserved a place in the main event but had to survive a challenge provided by Julien Wright over five lengthy sets.