Grand Final Recap

By Kameron Chan, Competition Manager – TTV Premier League

As the teams event was coming to a close in Bendigo at the 2018 ITTF World Junior Championships (China vs Japan in both boy’s and girl’s where China came out on top 3-0 and 3-1 respectively), MSAC was experiencing its own championships of sorts – the Grand Final of Season 3 of the TTV Premier League!

Left: Junior Boys team final    Right: Junior Girls team final

The first final to be decided was on Table 3, where a red-hot Melbourne CBD (Julian Thoms, Andrew Ng, Jack La) came into the bout against the veterans of St Kilda Cricket Blue (Martin Somic, Graeme Strong, Peter Sheedy). St Kilda had never failed to let CBD win overall against them but they gave them a sniff in their semi-final two weeks prior… However, an upset was not to be as Somic began proceedings by dismantling La in an easy straight games victory. He followed his efforts up by coming back for 2-0 deficit against a tough opponent in Ng who was defeated earlier by the erratic Strong. 3-0 then turned to 5-0 as the ever whimsical Sheedy won the other 2 matches against Thoms and La. For the second season in a row (albeit a different composition), St Kilda Cricket Blue has retained the premiership.

St Kilda Cricket Blue (Somic 2, Strong 1, Sheedy 2) def Melbourne CBD (Thoms 0, Chau (mascot) Ng 0, La 0) 5-0

The prime spectacle of the Premier League was the match up on Table 2 where the top two ladder holders, Balwyn United (Felix Kung, Keman (Luke) Lu, Robert Chan) and Monash (Anthony Majtlis, Parth Phansekar, Phil Riha), were to do battle once again. Their head to head leading into this final was Balwyn 2 and Monash 1. However Balwyn were without their left handed penholder young gun Junhao Jiang so fellow left handed penholder (not so) young gun Felix Kung had to step up to fill the void. Chan gave Balwyn the start it needed with a straight games victory over para representative Majtlis only to have the tides reversed when Phansekar, arguably the League’s best player, did the same to Kung whilst dropping a game to Chan. Steady Riha managed to come out on top against an awkward opponent in Lu in a 5 game encounter but Lu fought back to beat Majtlis in 4. It was 3-2 in Monash’s favour with Balwyn still a chance until Riha defeated Kung in 4 and Phansekar ended all hopes by destroying Lu in 3. Like St Kilda Cricket Blue in Division 2, Monash retained their crown in Division 1.

Monash (RIha 2, Phansekar 3, Majtlis 0) def Balwyn United (Chan 1, Lu 1, Kung 0) 5-2

The fixture on Table 4 was between the undefeated St Kilda Cricket White (Xenia Gorny, Jeanette Fallon, Joel Norton) taking on the dark horse underdogs of Albert Park Stars (Rahul Chikhale, Jim de Saint-Ferjeux, Evan Jia). Steady Gorny and improving Fallon set up a 2-0 by overcoming the young Jia and young (at heart!) Jim but this quickly turned to 2-2 when Chikhale and Jia overcame Norton and Fallon respectively. 2-2 turned into 3-3 as Chikhale defeated leading player Gorny in 4 and Norton destroyed Jim in 3. To end all proceedings (unexpectedly!) Chikhale and Jia once again combined to defeated Fallon and Norton to produce a fairy tale victory for the Stars. On paper, this should’ve been an absolute walk in the park for White given their undefeated record throughout the season and their head to head – except it wasn’t to be and ended in the most memorable of upsets.

Albert Park Stars (Jim 0, Jia 2, Chikhale 3) def St Kilda Cricket White (Norton 1, Gorny 1, Fallon 1) 5-3

As expected, there is always one table that never finishes with all the other matches. Table 1 hosted the final between undisputed favourites St Kilda Cricket Green (Heather Letwin, Patrick Fletcher, Sven Czesla) and the undisputed second best team in Maccabi Marcks (Marko Boscovski, Marc Listmangof, Mark Levin). Traditional rivalries between traditional clubs once against flared in what was a spectacular showdown. Leading player (once again) Listmangof opened the ledger with a comprehensive 3-1 win over the calm Fletcher only to have Waldner worshipper Czesla storm through Boskovski in 3. Levin accounted Letwin in 3 as well only for, once again, Czesla to do the same to Listmangof. Was anyone going to stop the German(iac) express??? Levin almost got through Fletcher in a match that went to five and to put a stop to St Kilda’s juggernaut, Boskovski steadied the sinking ship by ensuring Letwin’s defeat. After 6 matches, matches were level and so the final 3 would decide the victors. Levin got off to a 2-0 start against Czesla, who many wonder if his caffeinated coffee hit came crashing down. Some wise words from fellow German and clubman, Horst Frohlich, got Czesla back on track to storm back to win 3-2. In the meantime, another table had to be used to ensure the match was to end before lights out and concurred with a straight games win to Fletcher over Boscovski. Of the 3 premierships St Kilda contested, it secured a second one with this victory to be the best performing club this season.

St Kilda Cricket Green (Fletcher 2, Czesla 3, Letwin 0) def Maccabi Marcks (Levin 1, Listmangof 1, Boscovski 1) 5-3.

After what has been another successful season where 25 teams participated with a greater number of club participation, a revamped TTV Premier League will be looking to kick off the 1st Season for the year sometime in February, 2019. We look forward in what will be an even more thrilling season coming up. Feel like participating? Register your interest by emailing ttvpremierleague@gmail.com to subscribe for more information.

We managed to set up the hall such that we had 4 international sized show courts with plenty of seating. Also pictured are the TTV Premier League Season 3 Medals.