Weekly Fixtures Serves as Excellent Warm Up for Looming Tournament Season

After only four rounds of fixtures for the year in top grade players interested in attending tournaments start getting the choice to do so as it seems that the state’s busy tournament calendar kicks off earlier each year.

The first event for the year that locals can consider attending is the Northern Challenge which is being hosted by the Mackay Club next Saturday and Sunday. This event offers a different style of competition to normal tournaments and all reports from last year’s effort indicated that plenty of table tennis matches were available for participants. All details are available on-line for those still considering attending.

A tournament which always receives good support from Rocky players is the annual Bundaberg Open Championships and this year’s instalment is being staged between Friday 20 and Sunday 22 March which is not too far away. The local club’s annual Rocky Open is to played on Saturday and Sunday 20 and 21 June at the Leichhardt Park playing centre, whilst details of other tournament events are available on the state association’s website.

During the Easter break both the Queensland and Senior and Junior Closed Championships are being played at Moreton Bay and local players interested in representing Rocky at these state titles should notify the club. 

The city’s keener table tennis players hone their skills in the competitions and practice sessions available at the local club and already this year a few are already starting to display form that could see them impress on the state tournament circuit.

Young Judd Carr, who will represent the city at the state junior titles, played well in the last round of open grade fixtures when he took a set off Matthew Pettett and engaged in plenty of long rallies in the games he went down to the city’s current champion. Cooper Bulow, another young player off to the Q-Juniors at Easter, vindicated the decision to promote him to the top section this season when he outlasted the solid game of Kerrod Coughlan 11-9 in the deciding fifth game and played well in his other matches.

In division two Geoff Geddes survived a bold challenge from Patricia Green and, while he won comfortably in the deciding fifth set – on paper, this clash was very close with Geddes levelling the encounter at deuce in the fourth game which meant if he had not done so he would have gone down 3-1. In her other singles round Green virtually fell over the line against Helga Leitner in a lengthy encounter that she won 3-2. Incredibly, Green prevailed in the fourth set 21-19 to keep her in the match after losing the third set 16-14.    

Dave Milverton came in as a sub and performed very well to down Joe Clifton over four sets before he did the job against Allan Clarke in straight sets where did not miss many of his opportunities in attack. He also played strongly in the doubles tie with the improving Oliver Wright to create a 3-1 win while Wright outed Clifton over four good sets.