Division 2: Mo Whare (Belmont)
Runner Up: Terry Hooper (Empire)
also a Doubles was held for Divison 2 won by Maggie Dyer & Peter Lowe (Empire).
Division 3: Ian Thomas (Waterloo)
Runner Up: Cayden Larson (Empire)
Thanks to everyone who played – regroup and prepare for Series II – tap the shoulders of those you know who missed out on Series I – Series II will be starting July 29/30 (entries due July 22) and is a great time to get more teams in or adjust teams from Series 1 as required. See you then!
As a reminder for the Premier folks, 2 September will still be off due to the National Secondary School’s Champs.
You may have heard the news at summer interclub but for the record Hui-Ling Vong had great success at the recent ITTF Oceania Hopes Challenge event in Melbourne.
From TTNZ:
The Oceania Hopes Challenge concluded [April 6] in Melbourne with Yang Lun Zhao (Waikato) and Hui-Ling Vong (Wellington) winning both the boys and girls event for New Zealand. Yang Lun and Hui-Ling comfortably won all their matches
3-0.
As winners of the Oceania Hopes Challenge Hui-Ling and Yang Lun will be invited to participate in the ITTF Hopes Week and Challenge at the Werner Schlager in Vienna, Austria from the 9th to 16th June 2013.
From the ITTF Oceania Hopes site: The ITTF-Oceania Hopes Challenge is a talent identification tournament targeted for athletes aged 11 and 12 Years Old (Born in 2001/02). 2013 is the first year in which the event will be held.
The ITTF story is here – check this out.
No doubt Hui-Ling has some stories to tell you from her exciting trip so feel free to ask lots of questions on Wednesday nights for the next 4 weeks until the end of summer interclub!
Let me know of any name spelling corrections at interclub. The first night is this Wednesday, see you there!
Team Listings
Division 1
Belmont A: Callum Rusbridge & Martin Murdoch Empire A: Depak Patel and Paul Brown Empire B: Chris Talbot and Ian Talbot Belmont B: Cath Zhou & Larn Sweeney Empire C: Raewyn Young and Sabine Westenra Empire D: John Gan and Jason Giles
Division 2
Empire E: Bryan McConnochie and Tony Rutledge Belmont C: Frank Fu & Chun-Kiet Vong Empire F: Martin Young, Paul Solt and Harry Chen Waterloo A: Gareth Telfer & Sean Hanson Waterloo B: Scott Higham & Adam Xiong Empire G: Matthew Hobbs & Russell Buchanan
Division 3
Empire H: Isaac Noanoa and Graham Sole Waterloo C: Martin Xiong & Ellen Xiong Empire I: Vladmir Vysotskiy, Mo Whare and James Stewart Empire J: Merv Allardyce, Arindom Choudhury and Darren O’Brien Belmont D: Abram Goh & Hui-Ling Vong Waterloo D: Jacob Gates & Reuben Reid
Division 4
Belmont E: Jason Zhao & Allan Carson Belmont F: Charlie Waddy & Shikhar Parijat Empire K: Reg Feuz & Ian Grace Waterloo E: Chris Sutton & Ian Thomas Belmont G: Jeremy Traub & Nicholas Baucke
Division 5
Waterloo\Empire: Marius Lukkonnen & Jimi Nelson Belmont H: Angus Horan & Regan Craig Belmont I: Alex Tam & William Tam Empire L: Tyler Guthardt & Mason Tangatatai Empire M: Chris Beeston & Jacob Rattray Empire N: Adam Archibald-Mason & Hugh Pawson
The finals night of winter interclub was completed last night (Tuesday 11/9) so along with last Tuesday’s Premier 4 final we have the winning teams (with the players in each as listed at the start of the season):
Premier 2: Empire Pine (Win Nguyen, Raman Tiwana, Brendyn Shaw, Richard Dalziel)
runners-up: Empire Oak (Tony Rutledge, Chris Williams, Bruce Connolly, Uy Tang)
Premier 3: Empire Rowan (James Stewart, Yang Sun, Mo Whare, Murray McLeod, Peter Douglas, T Metuariki)
runners-up: Belmont Barbarians (Matt Gill, Matt Hannah, Tony Pietras)
Premier 4: Belmont 38 (Desmond Goh, Abram Goh, Sri Galloway)
runners-up: Karori Thunder (Steve Montgomery, Russell Jackson, Peter Bloor)
Congratulations to all winners and all players during the winter season!
The final individual results are: here (results from Finals nights don’t get included in the winter season individual percentages). The season draws were here.
As mentioned earlier, NEXT WEEK are the Winter Interclub Grade Championships. This is a separate singles competition for each Premier grade with players eligible to play in the championship for the grade they played in during the 2012 winter interclub and/or for the championship for the next-higher grade. The format will be groups of round-robins followed by a knock-out round. Premier 1 and Premier 3 grade championships will be held on Tuesday September 18 with Premier 2 and Premier 4 grade championships on Wednesday September 19. The player fee is reduced to $6 for grade championship nights.
Following this there is a break followed by the spring competitions on Wednesdays starting from mid October. More details on this will be published soon.
May 15 Premier 1 & 3 grades commence (Tuesdays)
May 16 Premier 2 & 4 grades commence (Wednesdays)
May 30/5 Junior Grade Commences
June 28 – July 16 School holidays (no interclub play, Junior Nationals)
July 17 Premier 1 & 3 grades continue
July 18 Premier 2 & 4 and Junior grades continue
Sept 4 Grade champs for Premier grades (1st vs. 2nd teams in each grade)
The full result spreadsheet is here: 2012 Summer Interclub 0404 Final. Refer to the spreadsheet for the details but the winning and runner-up teams in each grade were:
Grade A:
Winner: Belmont Blast (Heath Murdoch & Callum Rusbridge) 3-2 over Empire Amber (John Gan & Depak Patel).
(All the X position vs. X position section vs. section playoffs in grade A on the Finals night were 3-2 results!)
Grade B:
Winner: Empire Palladium (Chris Williams & Richard Dalziel/Bruce Connolly) 3-2 over Belmont Bumble Bees (Frank Fu & Hui-Ling Vong).
Grade C:
Winner: Belmont Bandits (Matt Gill & Ramnick Tiwana) 4-1 over Empire Silver (Vladimir Vysotskiy & Alex Safronov).
Looks like it was Belmont and Empire fighting it out in the top of every grade on finals night with Belmont taking 2 out of 3 grades.
Congratulations all winners and thanks to all for playing in the summer interclub competition. There is a break before winter interclub which typically starts later in May.
There are a couple of great new articles in the press this week on Hui-Ling Vong and also Abram Goh following their results recent ITTF Hopes event in Auckland.
First is one on Hui-Ling in The Wellingtonian: Hui-ling targets table tennis titles which has a nice photo. One of her goals is to be the best player at her club (Belmont) so watch out Belmont – oh wait, that means becoming the best player in Wellington so watch out everyone!
The other one is in the Hutt News: Belmont youngsters rise to top and talked about Hui-Ling and Abram. The classic quote from Stephen Hirst was: “She looked very annoyed with a bronze,” Hirst says !
Stephen Hirst organised and managed a group of juniors that went to the recent Inaugural TTNZ Hopes and Cadets Trials in Auckland on March 25. Results and pictures (click on the “Images” tab) are here.
Hi folks, after the usual late rush of entries and fiddling to get seedings near-enough, here are the actual draws for Summer Interclub from Wednesday February 29 through April 4. Thanks to Bruce for getting it all together.
Grades A and B are split into two sections with a playoff between them on the last night. Grade C has a 1v2, 3v4, 5v6 playoff on that last night.
As an overview on what table tennis is on and when during the summer period here is some information. (If you have any info to add please comment or let me know.)
Summer Interclub
Summer interclub (team competition, a bit more casual than the main winter interclub season) is broken into two distinct (unrelated) phases, first the Composite Interclub (see here and here). Second the ‘pre-season’ (late summer) summer interclub round with a format to be determined. For more details watch this blog or keep in contact through your club.
Your club
Some clubs remain open with a small break, others close for a summer break. Consider visiting a different club every now and again – chances are you’ll play people you’ve never played before.
Waterloo: starts again early March (probably the first week).
Onslow: starts again late March.
Tawa: Porirua East School, 8 Martin Street, Porirua East (turn right to hall prior to parking area). Operates from 7pm each Wednesday night April to October.
Titan: open through the summer except for 4 weeks off from mid December. Key hire for the Newtown stadium is available too, contact Table Tennis Wellington.
Belmont: running until the 25th of November and is starting up again in the middle of March.
Karori: finishes November 21, starting again late February or early March, to be determined.
Empire: The the last Monday night is Dec 12, the last midweek – Tuesday Dec 20 then opening casually from Jan 17 (officially Feb 2), and the last Junior club is Friday Nov 11. Opening dates for Mondays & Fridays to be determined.
Moonshine & Victoria University: – refer to club contact information here.
For more details or for other clubs refer to the club contact information here.
Exercise
Summer is a good time to start and get into a regular fitness pattern, if you find one that fits your schedule and you can enjoy it, then you’ll be more likely to keep it up through the whole year (um, this is do as I say, not as I do). I remember talking to a veteran player who noted that he would tend to win more often as the winter wore on, as other people got less fit! A fair-weather runner like myself will be one of his easy victims come Composite Interclub…
Elite squad coach Stephen Hirst recommends: “… it is always good in the off season to build your base fitness, i.e. lots and lots of cardio, skipping, running running and more running. As you get about 2 months out before the season starts I liked to taper off the running and start to replace that with more speed work like shuttle runs between two cones 20 metres apart. Start introducing more strength stuff with weights like squats for your quads. My favourite was jumping over a wooden bench traditionally found in schools 3 x 1 minute, it really kills you but gets you very explosive for the start of the season. Also continue this exercise throughout the season… This is all I used to do and can highly recommend it.”
My tip: paint the fence – if it worked for The Karate Kid it will work for you.
At least get out there and mow the lawn…
Helping
There are probably a hundred unpaid volunteers of some kind that help run and facilitate table tennis in the Wellington region. If you’re not already one of this bunch, think of something you enjoy doing that could contribute in any way. Put your name forward!
There is probably a table tennis table at one of your friend’s houses – go there and play and give them a lesson. Nothing will give you more pleasure. Just don’t forget to bring your own bat otherwise you’ll be battling to a 15-all deuce in the 3rd set against their 11 year old son because trying to topspin using their pimple-out no-sponge half-torn up left-in-the-sun fly-swatter only leaves you looping directly into the carpet at your feet.
The ulterior motive is that you could have some more people to bring along to your club. Lend them your real bat or a spare and open their eyes to what it is all about.
Summer project?
You might not have space for a table-tennis table in your own house but…
make a mini table tennis table… then become the best in the world.
Congratulations to the winning teams, some close results on the Finals night:
Senior grades:
Premier 1: Belmont Bananas (Callum Rusbridge, Thom Nguyen, Hayden Tapp) 6-3 winners over Titan
Premier 2: Empire Dangerous (Chris Williams, Bruce Connolly, Uy Tang) – a nail-biting 6-5 win over the Waterloo Wizards
Premier 3: Karori Kometz (Darrin Carmichael, Ben Westenra, Reg Fuez) 6-4 over Empire Xiong, reversing an in-season loss to Empire Xiong.
The re-launch of the Belmont TT Club was a great success on the 29th of April getting 10 junior players along including 2 girls that had never played before. The club has high hopes in boosting the grass roots participation numbers within TTW and therefore increasing the chance of a future champion or two.
To get the Club up and running again meant a lot of discussions with the council over storage of tables and venue availability, we luckily got around these obstacles unscathed. An issue we were faced with was finding all the tables that had belonged to the Club all those years ago, but to no avail. We have literally begged, borrowed and stolen equipment to re-launch the Club which we are sincerely grateful to the table tennis community in helping us. Nets came from Waterloo and Tables are on loan from both the Association and the Empire Club. I have been very impressed with the clubs attitudes and willingness to help the Belmont Club out.
Now we are up and running we have the challenge of being able to put together interclub teams in as many grades as possible. Any willing players out there?
The Belmont Club is on every Friday night @ 6-8pm for all junior players and 8-10pm for senior players. We play out of the Belmont Memorial Hall, Belmont Domain, 5011 (juniors $3, seniors $5).
—Stephen Hirst
The Belmont Memorial HallDirections: Belmont Memorial Hall is on the eastern side of the Western Hutt Road (SH2) by Belmont School. Exit to Fairway Drive (Kennedy-Good Bridge) but take the first right (don’t go over the bridge).
Table Tennis Wellington 