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: will start up again at Tawa Intermediate School probably on Thursday, 5 April 2012.
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 Hall
Directions: 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).
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