OOAK Table Tennis Forum

What a day it was today playing the Geelong Vets! I got to meet Oskar (and his brother) and Malleus as well as see Foam (and play Foam), Najay, Arlene and many other friends again. I played a lot of TT today. In all, including doubles, I think there was 13 matches of varying length. I went down with my Monday teammate E and he had set the address of the TT centre in his GPS, except he had got the address wrong. Seems the entry form said the centre is in Geelong, but omitted to add that it was in North Geelong. So we arrived at 84 Church st Geelong to find it was a house! I went online to the Geelong website for its address and when I said it was 84 Church St North Geelong, the penny dropped for E. So we reset the GPS and arrived at 11.30am instead of being 15 mins early for our "tee-off" time. We had already been called to play by the time we got there, and by the time we sorted out registration we heard our third and final call!

So we were straight into the first doubles match (in division 3) with no chance for a practice hit or anything. We played two blokes who hit the ball pretty well, but managed to shut them out and won it 3-0. Not bad for the rush we were in lol.

We didn't have very long to wait and we were called for our 2nd doubles match in the O40's category. We had drawn the 2nd seeds first up! These guys were on 1710 and 1562 points respectively. So when we almost took the first set from them and only lost it 13-11, we were pretty happy with ourselves. That was short-lived as they worked our game out and beat us 11-2 and 11-2 in the next 2 sets....much more expected scores.

After this I got to look around and found Oskar and brother, Foam, Najay and a few others. Soon after that though we were called for our next div 3 doubles match. It was against Foam and his partner in crime, Blue-smartie from Rob's forum (aka Blue). The match got underway and E and I took a strong lead out to 7-3 only to have the opponents pull themselves together and come back to be 8 all and eventually we arrived at deuce. We were as keen as each other to take this first set and so it kept buzzing along all the way to 15-13 their way. In the 2nd set they played some very good TT and took it from us around 11-8. Things were not looking good, except in the 3rd set we again got away to a good lead. This time we didn't frivel it away (although I think they did mount a comeback), but we closed it out around 11-7 IIRC. In the 4th set we owned them, getting to a 7-1 lead and winning it around 11-4 or so. So we went down to a 5th set showdown. Now Foam may correct me here as I have a lot of scores from the day floating around in my head, but I believe we changed ends at 5-2 up on them. I seem to recall getting to 6-2, then 6-3 and 6-4 before going to 7-4 and 7-5. There was a lot of good rallying and some strong loops coming from Foam and friend with some strong blocks coming back from our side. The score got to 10-8 our way and I was receiving serve from Blue. They got the next point to be 10-9 down. E was asking me to go to Foam's weaker BH with my return, but this time I chose to go wide to his FH. I hit a good shot that turned into a winner as it took a thick edge and avoiding any chance Foam had of getting a bat on it. So had beaten the no. 1 seeds of the division's doubles! The next 2 matches we played were really of the also-rans and we didn't drop a set to win the final! We did however have a pretty pedantic umpire in the final who criticised everyone but my serve in the match (and then made a minor criticism of mine after the match ).

The first singles I played today was div 3 against Foam. An early showdown unfortunately and one of us was going to feel cheated out of a decent run in div 3. It started with me taking the first set in a hard fought set 11-9. Foam returned fire with something like an 11-8 win himself in the next set. He invented himself a new serve during the match realising he needed a topspin serve against me. I have to applaud him for thinking on his feet so quickly , but I also throw disdain his way for it too The trouble with the serve he invented was he was almost serving out out of hand with only about a 2 or 3 inch toss. I got E, who was umpiring to ask him for a higher toss, which he did, but found it less successful, so he reverted to other serves. This stopped his strategy of getting the right spin that suited his loop and I returned to the winners side with about an 11-8. So I was 2 sets to 1 up. I was winning the 4th set when E was called to play his own match, so Oskar stepped in to be umpire. Now nothing against Oskar, we were grateful to have him there, but Foam used this to his advantage and its taken me most the day to realise how. He reverted to the low toss topspin serve. I almost closed the set out nevertheless for the match, but he took it 14-12 in the end. Using his topspin serve he was getting back underspin from me and no matter where I put it, he was usually able to position himself for a FH loop which is so heavy that I was sending a lot of them long. So he beat me about 11-6 in the 5th set. I will let the reader decide whether it was fair or foul, all I will say is Oskar wasn't aware of the tossing issue and I was more intent on returning his serve by then, than thinking about the legality of his toss. Serving legality was a lot bigger issue at this tournament today than you ever see in club play. All the finals were umpired by official accredited umpires and they were cracking down on it. I won't hold it against Foam anyway, cos he was dreading losing this match badly and I needed some losses to get me a rating anyway

So anyway, I was out of div 3. Now I had to play div 2 singles. I had to play a "pre-cursor" match to the main div 2 draw against a div 4 player as a sort of "qualifier". I won that match 3-0 with 11-6 in each set. This lead me onto my first match in div 2 which was against the no.1 seed. I have played this guy a couple of times before in best of 7's and got 2 sets from him as my best. He beat me 11-9 in the first set and I think I was playing the best TT of my whole day to get there. In the 2nd set, I lead him all the way out to 10-9 and had a set point only to miss a BH drive that would have won me the point if it landed. We battled on to 11 all, and he finally got 13-11. The third set, I struggled along feeling a sense of dread and while I played ok and picked up a few points at the end, he had it sealed and won it about 11-6 or 7. Oskar, Foam and Oskar's brother had watched most of this match and Oskar was the only one left in the last set. I hit an awesome smash from about 12 feet off the table from wide on my FH which I thought was a winner, only to have my opponent get his bat on it and block it back mid-table leaving me all at sea to do anything about it. I turned around to see Oskar's face and he was staring at his bat rubber and said he missed the whole thing!

Now that would have been all of the day, except that when we arrived, knowing we may bow out of the singles divisions we were in early, we asked if we could be put into div 4 where we knew we would win some games and get some value from the day. They grudgingly let us after some umming and arring. So glad we did play this division as it gave me and E 5 more matches for the day. I thought I may lose my first match though as I played a guy who plays A2 at Ballarat and he played LP on one side and nothing on the back side. I think he was a C-Pen player, but to be honest, he may have been a Seemiller player, I didn't pay enough attention to his grip. All I knew was he was a lefty that got the ball back awfully well and I was struggling with his style. He beat me 11-5 in the first set and I had to work out ways to give him trouble. I managed to hold him out in the 2nd set just barely at 12-10. In the 3rd and 4th sets I was much more in control and won them 11-5 and 11-6. It was a lot tougher match than I expected in this division though. I think it will be the last time I can play div 4 though, so I made the most of it.

The next match I played also seemed tough and I had to work out what to do against the guy who had a strong FH, especially hitting it from BH side to my BH side. He had a serve which demanded a return to the spot he wanted it to enable this smash. Once I worked out to put the serve back to his FH side more, it took most the sting from his weapon. I beat him 11-5 in 3 sets straight.

I played a guy who was decked out in flashy looking TT gear next that made him look quite a player. I think he got it to 11-9 my way in the first set. He got progressively worse though, losing 11-3 and 11-1 in the next 2 sets.

This took me to the semi-final of div 4 and I had to play the guy I'd played in the "qualifier" of div 2. This concerned me because he had learned some of my game. I was right to be concerned as this time he got the first set 12-10 from me, although I had served a perfect pip BH to BH serve which he'd dumped in the net at the same time as E who was umpiring for us called Let on it. I'm sure it didn't touch the net and I had a natural reaction to say it wasn't, but of course even if it didn't touch the net my opponent deserved a let for being disturbed by the call (although I think he would have dumped it anyway lol). This took my focus and its how he won the set. I won the next set 11-8, the 3rd set 11-5 and the last set 11-3. So I needn't have worried I did apologise to my opponent for saying it wasn't a let after the match, not that I'd gotten abusive or anything, but I realised contesting it was pointless and thoughtless.

So this lead me into the Div 4 final and who was my opponent? None other than my teammate, E! Well we were both tired, but he had had a rest for a while coming into the match. Whatever drove it though, he outplayed me and played like a man possessed. He obviously wanted it more than I did. He was almost faultless in his play and I felt I'd had enough for the day. I went through the motions, but played nothing like he knows I can. He was surprised I played so badly. I had nothing left in the tank. We'd been going almost non-stop since 11.30am and it was almost 7pm. He won it 11-3, 11-3 and the umpire (a guy from our own club we know well) "bet" him he couldn't repeat it. He tried his best as he got to 5-0 up on me. I ended up losing the last one 11-7 as I tried to rouse some fight in myself. I was quite happy to be runner-up knowing there was some prizemoney involved as well as what we had won from the div 3 doubles. We both came out of the day profiting above the entry fees. I told E he drove and so he deserved the extra, but really he deserved it from the way he played me.

So after collecting our prizemoney we headed off back toward the "big smoke" of Melbourne. Getting out of the car back at his place we both felt rather sore and stiff!

I really enjoyed the day and meeting/seeing all the people , although the venue was rather hot inside it, but nowhere near as hot as when I played there back in 2008. I took a short vid of the venue which I will upload and post in this thread at some time soon. Was a shame I didn't get to have a hit with Malleus or Oskar. There just didn't end up being any time for it.

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Let's not get into dodgy mr get a warning for bubbles in you ox pips . From the official ittf umpire that didn't call me on anything all day . Ill make sure the topspin is worked on and 6 foot high next time, you just work on how you will stop me hitting the 3rd ball for the rematch

_________________
Donic defplay senso
Haifu whale soft (grips-euro)
Nittaku pimplemini 1.0mm

Now get your facts straight my friend. It wasn't a bubble and it wasn't in my pips. It was a slight bump in my inverted that most people wouldn't even pick, caused by an ounce extra glue in one spot. The official umpire in the final of the singles inspected it and had no issues. And I said I wasn't holding it against you, but I am chuckling cos you stopped the topspin serve for a while and came back to it when the umpire changed Anyway, you had a ripping day, so I'm glad I didn't take that away from you. I doubt I'd have got to the Div 3 final. Played too inconsistently today!

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Great write up Reb , so will you get an official Victorian rating now? It's nice to see the friendly rivalry and other rivalry
Tournament play is certainly different from the standard weekly interclub, was there no round robin at all for the divisions? or were entries quite small?

It does plan to know the venue location and to be a bit early, I find I'm good at being organised for one event and the next one I pack my bags with 15 mins before start time and head off to go lol
it is always great meeting up with old friends and making new ones at those sort of places

I played 40 games at the New Zealand Veterans last weekend, and I forgot to enter the men's doubles lol

_________________
Blade Ulmo Duality| FH Tibhar mx-p Black, Dawei 388D-1 red OX
NZ table tennis selector, ask a question
My Blog here..How table tennis objects are made
Table Tennis abbreviations, and acronyms

Yes, great write-up and it sounds like you had a really good day too. Nicely done!

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

There was ONLY friendly rivalries. No others LOL. Foam and I are good mates and that ain't gonna change over a game. Everything said above is friendly pot-shots

There were a few round-robins, but some got sent by the wayside it seemed today. I know Foam played one in the O40's singles. It seemed they dropped them in the divisions they normally have them. Don't know why, as there was entries aplenty. At least around 20 players per division, maybe more.

Saw Case today. He remembered you, I won't say his description though LOL - just that the word BIG BLOKE came up a few times I tried to get an estimate of your level from him compared to our divisions. He conferred with another bloke who met you, Michael E. In the end they couldn't or didn't come up with one as the conversation went off-track.

40 matches? That's a lot in one weekend! You're a better man than I, Gungadin!

Edit: Oh, sorry forgot the rating question. As best I can figure, yes. I have now lost to 4 players in Vets tourney's. One last September, and 3 today. One of those 3 was my mate E though, and he is unrated. So I don't know if he counts. I've lost to players at ratings of 1340, 1086 and 1051 and beaten about 4 or 5 players in the 1000 - 1060 mark in tournaments now. So, I figure this may result in a rating around the 1050 level, perhaps a bit less. I have also beaten another 6 or 7 players with ratings below 1000, but I don't know if they influence it at all, and if so in which direction. Foam would probably have a better idea.

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

both great guys, Micheal is great at attacking with pogo, I umpired a doubles match with Case and Buddy Reid, which they won, Buddy later went to Hospital and seemed to recovery fine, but please ask about him to Case or Micheal?

_________________
Blade Ulmo Duality| FH Tibhar mx-p Black, Dawei 388D-1 red OX
NZ table tennis selector, ask a question
My Blog here..How table tennis objects are made
Table Tennis abbreviations, and acronyms

Does anyone know the results of the over 40's and 50s mens singles?

Great description of the action.

Great lesson you all learned about getting there. Route recon on Google maps is a life saver in urbal navigation.

Hope you all brought a ton of hydration, fruits and nutrition, that makes a huge difference in those daylong tourneys.

_________________
Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Questioning my umpiring duties? Hmmm. Fair enough, but do keep in mind I don't get paid anywhere enough to nit-pick serving actions. Besides, I think it prudent for experienced players such as yourself to recognise a green umpire and assist by pointing out issues. Don't you think this would have alleviated any grievances you might have had with my umpiring? I know I certainly played one player who served from his hand ...

_________________

Weapon 1: Andro Kinetic Supreme Hinoki/Zylon OFF-; Andro Hexer HDs (FH 2.1/BH 1.9)
Weapon 2: Ross Leidy 'Smokey'; Friendship 729-5s
Club1: Daylesford - since 2010
Club2: Ballarat - since 2011
Blog: A Naked Bear

No grievance with your umpiring Oskar, not at all mate. I totally understood that you stepped in to help out and my head was way too deep in the game by the time you did for me to think about umpiring advice I think it was the same for Foam. I think he went back to what he knew worked on me to give himself an edge and with no-one complaining about the serve, would have assumed all was fine. A comedy of errors of a sort LOL. At least he wasn't serving out of hand, that wouldn't be kosha! His toss was about 4 inches.

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Over 40's Men's was won by BP against BB -11, , 6, 10, -6, 1.

Over 50's Men's singles was won by Wayne Greaves against BP -9, -10, 12, 9, 7.

I saw a bit of the Over 40's final. Had never seen BP play live before. Gees he's good to watch. BB looked unarmed against him in the bit that I saw. Would have liked to watch more, but my driver was keen to get on the road LOL

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

I wasn't paying a great amount of attention to the route given that E had his trusty Iphone navigator telling him every turn to make and the fact that he said there was some new freeway off-ramp that took you a different way to what I'd have gone. It was only when he pulled up and said this is supposed to be it and I heard his navigator lady say "You have reached your destination" I knew something was off LOL. Thank goodness for mobile internet these days that we could sort it out quickly

I went prepared with sports drinks, some good healthy food and some bananas. E relied on the canteen's drinks, pies and chips! Yet he still managed to thrash me in the end of the days match!

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

wow thats a great win for wayne and a huge upset. an idea who beat BB, Jeff D and Phil W in the over 50s?

I don't know when I will run into Case again as he isn't playing at Dandy at the moment. Michael I had seen before, but hadn't met until yesterday myself. Agreed, both are great guys. I've known Case since I was about 12 or 13. Have played golf with him and his brother on many occasions, as did my Dad. Played TT against his other brother when he played at Dandy in my division (Case always played a higher one). Case's son even went through school with my sister. So have many connections with him and have always known him to be an extremely affable and friendly bloke. And he's still very fit at age 75!

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.