pbsmick

Today was the start of the 2012 Australian Open. Half the people here I have never met before, a lot of new young faces. Which is good! Victoria has sent a tough young team including Robert Frank, David Powell, Heming Hu, Shibaji Datta and Dillon Cathcart which I believe will do well. The matches I filmed today were mainly the Women’s Korean Team vs South Australia. They are a very tough team with all players extremely fast off the bounce players. They will play the Victorian Women’s Team of  Miao Miao, Melissa Tapper and Jian Fang Lay on Wednesday and that will be the event to watch,

Also playing in the Team’s Event is the Male Korean Team which include Kang Dong Hoon (current Open Champion) Lee Jin Kon Seeded #1 and Kim Jang Ho and I’m sure will win the event. All the males are huge hitters with amazing footwork and speed. I was watching them warm up and they were doing topspin to topspin from almost the end of the court and then would start hitting around the net for a bit of fun! They won’t be troubled until they play the NSW Team and maybe the VIC Team. I bumped into Simon Gerada today who has decided not to play at all but to coach the U21 Men’s Team of Ivan Sulfaro, Nathan van der Heiden, Derek Tun and Ben Taylor and also the Women’s Team when possible. Kinda a shame considering Simon is ranked #2 in Australia and almost won the event last year in Hobart. But the fact he is still here coaching the younger team is a great effort! And any advice given by Simon Gerada is to be treasured! Plus he has a cold too so stay clear of him!!

The Brisbane Table Tennis Club in Windsor is hosting the event and have done an amazing job. A few things I have noticed though are the barriers are really dodgy like the old MSAC barriers (very loose and easily knocked over) and there are no bins around the playing area. You need to walk all the way up to the canteen area, so rubbish is being left on the floor when teams leave. Apart from that everything is running smoothly. I’m staying with my sister in Labrador which is near the Gold Coast so it’s about a 40 min drive to the centre. I rented a car for the week so its not to bad at all and I used to live in Brisbane so I still know my way around. For match results click www.tabletennisqld.org

So this year I have been able to get time off horrible work to attend The Australian Open in Brisbane. Last time I attended an Open was in 2010 in Gosford NSW. It was great because I got to drive from Melbourne and back and I love to go on road trips. This year I’m flying because of the distance plus they are starting the competition on a Sunday? Lucky for me my sister lives in Brisbane so I’ll have a place to stay while I’m there. One thing I’m hoping to do is get more interviews, we have a lot of up and coming players and it will be interesting to see them in action against the more experienced players.

With the Men’s Singles we have the Korean players back again and a new higher ranked player then Kang Dong Hoon who won last years final against Simon Gerada. William Henzell is now seeded 2 for the event which should make things interesting. Henzell has been #1 in Australia for at least 10 years and honestly, watching him beat the same people over and over gets a bit boring so having these new players over will spice things up! Sadly the Australia Open Committee has decided to make the teams events really long. Most matches are played best of seven and when a team scores 4 win first then the following matches aren’t played, makes sense right! Well this year they want the teams to play the full matches regardless of the Team Score. In doing this they are forcing players to play at least twice as many matches as they should and some players might be burnt out for the Singles matches starting on the Wednesday. Unfortunately players like Simon Gerada and William Henzell have now pulled out of the Team Events which is a shame but I can’t blame them.

So I will be flying out Saturday and coming home on the following Sunday. Make sure you keep logging on here to see how the comp is going. And heaps of videos to come on YouTube!

See ya!