UTSNZ Table Tennis Champs Review

Manurewa Table Tennis Club hosted 8 teams in the men’s draw and 4 in women’s draw for the second UTSNZ Champs.  In men’s pool play most matches went to seeding.  The exception was the match between Canterbury and Otago where the latter prevailed 3-2.

Despite the predictability of overall results there were several significant individual battles along the way.  Jae Lee from Massey in Palmerston North had a penchant for the dramatic.   Earlier on he came back from 2-1 down to defeat Sean Hanson from Victoria 3-2.  Then in the very last match of pool play he had Massey’s honour at stake at 4-0 and match-point down against Roger Wang from Auckland.  He saved the fourth set cliff-hanger and then prevailed in the fifth to give his team some impetus going into semi-finals.

The match between Canterbury and Otago proved very close indeed.  After Canterbury raced off to a 2-0 lead, Lingnan Kong recovered a 2-1 deficit to defeat a determined Jesse Wilson 3-2.  That left Ron Park of Canterbury battling Otago’s Tom Henderson in the decider, with Tom prevailing 3-0. 

In the women’s draw the Invitation Schools team of Zhiying Cheng, Sophie Low and Grace Qin surprised in brushing their opposition aside unceremoniously.  But, the key result was a 5-4 win for Waikato over Victoria, effectively for Silver medal.  The star was Han Rong who won all 3 of her matches, to support the experienced Jessica Macaskill, who won 2. 

There were many interesting people sighted on the side-lines, including coaches Matt Ball, Hayden Tapp, Jianni Jiang, Albert Cheng and player coaches, Jesse Wilson, Sean Hanson and Jae Lee, supporting the general feeling that the annual Universities event has gone to a higher level this year.

In the semi-finals of the plate event Victoria and Canterbury both triumphed 4-1 over Massey Albany and Waikato respectively.  In the championship semis AUT raced to a 3-0 win over Massey Palmerston North, although Thibault Portier struggled to subdue William Hunter in a match of long rallies.   Auckland defeated Otago 3-2.  In the latter match Lingnan Kong defeated Roger Wang and Tom Henderson upset Chung Kiet Vong, while Dean Shu beat both, and Dinyar Irani defeated Josh Tonkin. 

The Invitation Schoolgirls team completed a rout of their older counterparts, beating Waikato 7-1, while Auckland, comprising Maggie Ngo, Jocelyn Lim and Nai Xin Jiang took gold with wins over Victoria and Waikato.  The Waikato girls took silver, having earlier triumphed over Victoria.

The plate was won by Canterbury, Jesse Wilson, Ron Park and Jack Liu, from Victoria, spearheaded by Sean Hanson.  Waikato beat Massey Albany for 7th place, with both teams competing enthusiastically throughout.

The bronze play-off went down to the wire, with Jae Lee and Lingnan Kong keeping the crowd entertained to the end of a tense 5 setter, after Jae had earlier defeated Tom Henderson.  William Hunter impressively beat Josh Tonkin to support Jae.  Lingnan had earlier defeated Dean Lochhead, who also played well on the day.   Lingnan eventually triumphed to send the bronze medal to Otago.

The men’s final initially promised an upset as Saroch Tortienchai had Dean Shu on the ropes.  But, the experienced Dean rose to the occasion in the fifth set.   Dinyar Irani then played with immense control in beating Thibault Portier as the third singles entered an interesting phase.  After taking the early advantage, AUT’s Victor Ma was pulled in by a resilient Roger Wang.  Roger was superb in the fifth set, taking it comfortably and conferring the gold medal for 2017 to Auckland University.  AUT could be well pleased in finishing runners-up. 

Thanks go to UTSNZ and their member organisers, Manurewa Club, who were superb hosts, and to Stag International in supplying bags for participants, managers and coaches.