Two player teams, play two other teams each night, best of 5 to 11
Five Wednesdays 15 March – 12 April @ Empire TTC Hall (04 568 6054)
Open from 6:30pm, matches to start 7pm
FEES $8 per player per Wednesday to the duty official before play.
ENTER by Thurs 9 March via your club or haineskj52@gmail.com (we match extras into composite teams). A team can have any number of players but only two play per match.
FORMAT 2 Player teams: each team plays two matches (against two other teams) each Wednesday– each team vs. team match is two singles each player (best of 5 to 11)plus a one-set doubles (best of 1 to 11) played only as a tie break if it is 2-all. i.e. each night you play four singles and sometimes also one or two doubles sets.
Saturday March 18 8:45 AM Over 50 or Over 70 (enter one of, not both) 1:00 PM Over 40 or Over 60 (enter one of, not both) Report at least 15 minutes before the above time.
Each age group has singles and doubles events. Doubles pairings can be MM, FF, or MF.
Singles events cost $15 each. Doubles $5 per player per event.
Entries close 11.59pm Tuesday March 14 via TTNZ Tournament Planner or direct as in the conditions document below.
Pay on the day or direct payment to “Table Tennis Wellington” at Westpac 03-0558-0038972-00 (if using direct payment, please reference “TTW Vets” and your name).
Congratulations to Yufeng Wang from all of us, he was selected by TTNZ to represent New Zealand (announcement) at the 2022 ITTF-Oceania Youth Championships! This event will be held in Melbourne Sep 5-10, be sure to give him a pat on the back next time you see him.
Help refresh the stadium to keep it going until it can be fully renovated.
We’re organising a working bee at the Newtown Table Tennis Stadium to refresh the exterior and interior, especially the playing area, so we can continue playing there safely until the Stadium is fully renovated.
When Saturday 28 January. There’ll be a morning shift and an afternoon shift – come for one or the other – or both!
We thank the TAB for recently awarding us a grant towards accommodation costs for teams at the recent TTNZ nationals. We are a volunteer-run sport and the annual Nationals is a large expense for us as well as the travelling players and team managers every amount is greatly appreciated!
On Saturday 24th September, the 2nd one day camp for players in the Central Region was held with 30 players attending. An awesome coaching team had a program built on extending the players from the first camp back in July and a productive day was had by all. The camp was organised by Matt Ball with coaches Tim Seaholme, Natalie Paterson, James Wang and Tim Wilson involved.
Manish Ahlawat won the Four Wednesdays November competition for the third consecutive year, comfortably seeing off nearest rivals Depak Patel and Ian Talbot, with Paul Solt and Darrell Brown close behind those two. The minor medal positions were in doubt until the last doubles, following which, it was agreed that Depak placed second by virtue of beating Ian earlier in the competition.
There were many interesting results achieved over the four weeks with a number of players beating higher rated opponents and a couple of young players also catching the eye with their performances. Thanks to all who participated.
Starts November 2 – Wednesdays @ Empire Table Tennis Club hall Four Wednesdays: Nov 2nd/9th/16th/23rd (7pm).
At the Empire hall from 7:10pm Tuesdays August 2nd / Wednesdays August 3rd (eight weeks until September 20/21) – same week days and same formats as Series 1.
Recently, the first of the Junior Development Tournaments for 2022 was held at the Empire Stadium. Numbers were reasonable and the standard of all players who entered was good. There were some very interesting matches played and all players would have benefited from their matches and the experience of playing in a tournament.
The winners and runners up were as follows:
Winner
Runner Up
Under 13 Boys Singles
Savion Polyblank
Ben Kimber
Under 13 Girls Singles
Zoe Mildenhall
Brooke Martin
Under 13 Doubles
Ben Kimber & Savion Polyblank
Joel Bennett & Ashwyn Thakur
Under 15 Singles
Archit Nanda
Dallas Martin
Under 15 Doubles
Aadi Madhavan & Archit Nanda
Jacob Andrews & Alex Thorn
Under 17 Boys Singles
Archit Nanda
Ryley Chin
Under 17 Girls Singles
Holly Robins
Li-Yin Lin
Under 17 Boys Plate
Dallas Martin
Jacob Andrews
Under 17 Doubles
Aadi Madhavan & Archit Nanda
Ryley Chin & Kieran Robinson
Thanks to all the participating players, their family supporters plus Rob Chung, Maggie Dyer and Paul Solt for their assistance. Special thanks go to Bruce Northover for the preparation of some high class certificates which were much appreciated by the recipients.
Premier grades (Premier 1, Premier 2) on Tuesdays * 2-player teams (2 x singles best of 7 & a doubles best of 5)
Division 1 grade on Wednesdays * 3-player teams (9 singles & 2 doubles matches – as usual)
Division 2 grade on Tuesdays * 3-player teams (9 singles & 2 doubles matches – as usual)
Teams are entered only from clubs – reach out to your club contact to be included.
Partial teams may be entered and we will endeavour to form composite teams. Extra players may be entered for a team but only two (for Premier grades) or three (for Division 1 & 2 grades) may play for that team on any specific evening.
We will seed teams and limit the number of teams per grade to eight but each team may request a preferred highest grade.
Each grade will include a round robin with every team playing every other team.
Replacement players can be sourced from a lower grade or as approved by the interclub committee. E.g. a Premier 2 player can fill in for a Premier 1 team (with another lower grade player filling in for the Premier 2 player’s team).
If a player is deemed to be of a certain standard through being named in a particular grade (and confirmed by the interclub committee at the time of naming teams in Grades), then that player can play any number of fixtures for a higher grade while still continuing to play in the lower grade. However players can fill in for higher grades in only one team during the series.
Entries close Wednesday 11 May. Late entries accepted only to fill byes in grades.
Note: treat this Series 1 as a distinct competition. There will be a Series 2 (anticipated for after mid-year) however the format for Series 2 is TBD by the TTW interclub committee. Teams would be re-entered for Series 2 & may be seeded & graded differently than Series 1 effectively this may mean some promotion/relegation vs. Series 1 (with or without playoff TBD).
TTNZ is pleased to announce that Averil Roberts has been selected as an International Umpire to officiate at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, to be held in Birmingham, England from 28 July to 8 August. Check out the article @ TTNZ, congratulations Averil!
Sad news with Malcolm Wong passing away on Tuesday (7/12/2021). Malcolm had lots of friends in the table tennis community here in Wellington but also all over New Zealand as well as overseas with official umpiring at international events such as the 2018 World Juniors, 2017 World Masters Games, 2014 World Vets, Commonwealth Table Tennis Champs (Glasgow) in 2009. Malcolm loved to travel around New Zealand both to play as umpire and having a keen interest in table tennis history was a prolific writer for our player profiles and travel reports here.
Malcolm has been the president of Table Tennis Wellington since 2017 and has been active in many capacities and for multiple clubs over the years with Te Rama his home base.
Malcolm will have a private funeral in Wellington followed by a public funeral in Auckland.
After an intriguing final night, Manish Ahlawat finished the four week competition on top, thus retaining the title he won last year. Sabine Westenra had a strong last night coming from five points behind to pip Ian Talbot for second place by one point.
Thanks are extended to all those who played in this competition, along with all the other tournaments and competitions that were held in 2021.
1978, NZ Junior Boys Teams Champions (Northern Hawkes Bay Shield)
L-R Trevor Cullen, Tony Hawes, Simon Edmonds and John Taylor
NZ Junior Teams (Under 18 and Under 14 Boys and Girls) were held for the first time at the 1978 NZ Championships held at the Centennial Hall, Napier (24-25 August).
The Hutt Valley Under 18 Boys Team was Simon Edmonds, John Taylor, Trevor Cullen and Tony Hawes. Simon was from the Silverstream Club, and the others from the Waterloo Club. Alan Costley was the Manager and Neil Addis and Keith Barnes were the coaches for the Hutt Valley Junior Teams.
From 1966-77 the NZ Junior Teams tournament was held on a regional basis, with the regional winners playing off in a final. The first winners in 1966 was Hutt Valley (Boys) and Otago (Girls).
Wellington boys were runner ups in 1975 and won the NZ Junior Teams 1976 and 1977. In the 1975 final Wellington (Lloyd Richards, Malcolm Elley, David Williment) beat Franklin 10-1, Hamilton 11-0 and lost to Canterbury (Stuart Armstrong, Alister Amstrong, Henry Redmond) 3-8. In the 1976 final held at the Empire Club, Petone (7 August), Wellington (Lloyd Richards, David Williment, Malcolm Elley, Richard Williment) beat Manawatu 8-3, Auckland 6-5 and Canterbury 6-5. In 1977 Wellington (David Williment, Richard Williment, Lloyd Richards, Grant Taylor) retained the title, at the Empire Club (6 August) by beating in the final, Auckland 9-2, Wanganui 9-2 and Canterbury 6-5.
The final was on Friday evening, 25 August. Hutt Valley raced to a 4-0 lead. In the first match Trevor Cullen upset Malcolm Temperley 14-21 21-17 21-11. John Taylor continued by beating Barry Griffiths 21-17 22-20. Then Simon Edmonds beat Don Tate 21-19 21-16. In the first Doubles Edmonds/Taylor beat Temperley /Tate 14-21 21-14 21-12.
Malcolm Temperley started the Auckland comeback by beating John Taylor 21-14 18-21 21-16. Then Don Tate beat Trevor Cullen 21-16 14-21 21-19. And Barry Griffths beat Simon Edmonds 21-14 24-22. In the second doubles Temperley/Griffths won the first game 21-5 and lead 19-15 in the second game. It seem that the match would be tied up at 4-4. However Cullen/Taylor recoverd to win 21-19 and then won the third 21-10 to give Hutt Valley a 5-3 lead. John Taylor then beat Don Tate 21-10 21-16 for Hutt Valley to win the 1978 NZ Under 18 Boys teams 6-3.
Thanks for the information in the Auckland Table Tennis Magazine, Vol 17 no 6 (18 September 1978 p4-5 , the Canterbury Table Tennis Association Magazine (21 up) Vol 5 no 7) October 1978 p10-13, TTNZ website (Titleholders and Chronicles), TTNZ Annual Reports, Alan Costley and the 1975-78 Wellington Table Tennis Association Annual Report.
Adrian was born in 1948 in Wellington and started table tennis age 16 at the Kilbirnie RSA. As a right handed counter attacking player Adrian was very determined and very colourful, talking a lot during his games which often attracted a large crowd at tournaments, sometimes even breaking his bat after losing a match.
Adrian had a number of pet sayings that he would often shout out during his table tennis/tennis matches. These shouts often amused his opponents and spectators but they were often mystified as to their relevance to the match they were playing. One of his most regular shouts was “The Luck of the Irish!”, often shouted if his opponent had pulled off a lucky shot such as the ball clipping the table edge or hitting the net cord and dropping dead. However Adrian often also shouted the same if he won a point with a lucky shot.
Another was “Tuck it away Barrie”. His contemporaries think he heard well known Hutt Valley Tennis player Barrie Shute say that when he was not happy with his smash of a lob ball. Adrian adopted it and would often shout it if he missed a ball he thought he was going to hit for a winner or when he had it a winner and was showing self approval of the shout. Players on adjacent courts would sometimes mimic him so occasionally there might be players on different courts all bellowing “Tuck it away Barrie” for no obvious reason. It certainly made interclub entertaining.
Adrian and Brian Kennedy used to train several times a week as well as playing A Grade interclub on Tuesday nights. Adrian and Brian adopted the regular practice of arriving at 6:30pm for 7pm interclub start. So they would hit up for 20 minutes or so, then change their shirts and put on their tracksuits so they would not cool down. When their opposition arrived they would get them to the table promptly for the allowed 2 minute hit up and then start the match. They often raced away to a big first set lead because their opponents were still cold. Surprisingly it was rare for other players to arrive early and have a decent hit up before starting interclub. In 1974 Adrian lost only 1 singles in interclub.
1971 Wellington Table Tennis A Grade Team Champions with Gerald Bell Memorial Cup.
Kilbirnie RSA (Brian Kennedy, John Woodcock and Adrian Lust).
Miramar Tennis Team which won the inaugural Wellington/Hutt Valley Senior A Grade Interclub Title
1970 Adrian Lust playing in the Wellington Championships
1973 NZ Senior training squad
L/R back: Barbara Taylor, James Morris, Bain Attwood, Gary Murphy, Alan Tomlinson, Maurice Burrowes, Cathy Tadema, Adrian Lust.
front: Jan Morris, Kerry Palmer, Yvonne Fogarty, Trevor Flint (Director), Neti Traill, Thelma May, Kathy Fraser
Table Tennis Wellington 