8:30am on Saturday 8th June came round and kicked off the annual Victorian Metropolitan Championships. 

This event has had a long history, going back to 1952, and even before this the Atlas Shield, which was the forerunner to both Country & Metropolitan Championships, commenced in 1939. 

Split across two venues in Croydon & Districts TTA & Greater Dandenong TTA, there was plenty of action across the tournament throughout the weekend. 

Day 1 & 2 of the championships were the team’s events where multiple different teams faced off across grades A1-F4. This year saw the 2023 record team entries of 84 absolutely smashed with 108 different teams entering across 27 different grades. 

To view the teams events photo board please click here 

Miao’s table tennis had an incredible showing in the teams events with 9 premiers and 12 leading players from a total of 13 teams entered. 

LOOPS won 6 premiers, with Croydon and Scorpio following closely behind with 5. 

Croydon & Districts TTA 1 were victorious in the A1 Grade with LOOPs 1 winning the A2 Grade.

See the full teams summary here!

To view the full teams results for A & B Grades please click here 

To view the full teams results for the C & D Grades please click here 

To view the full teams results for the E & F Grades please click here 

Day 3 saw the individual’s event being played out, across both venues yet again. 

Santoo Shrestha took home the Open Men’s Singles title defeating Alex Huang, whilst Alice Xia was victorious over Swetha Sundaresan to claim the Open Women’s Singles title. 

To view the individual tournament photo board please click here 

You can read the full individual results Here 

Tournament Director & TTV Board Member, Greg Bristowe was extremely pleased with the record numbers for this year’s event. 

“Back in 2012, when we restarted the Victorian Metropolitan Championships after several years of no play, it was always a dream to have an event that compliments the Victorian Country Championships. Even though there was some hurdles and opposition, we persevered and promoted this event amongst all Metropolitan affiliates, and over the last three years the numbers of players has skyrocketed.” 

“This year we reached 108 teams from 12 affiliates and 347 players, playing in two venues and over three days. We have players of all levels of play, from Commonwealth Games representatives, National & State Champions, to rank and file club members having fun representing their clubs. We had players from 7 years of age all the way up to 87!! All up, there were 1845 matches played, which is a lot of table tennis.” 

“Every affiliate that entered, was able to go back to their club with a trophy, not one club missed out on an award, which is great to spread the results amongst all that competed. The affiliate with the best results over the weekend was Miao Table Tennis Academy, taking home 9 team titles.” 

“Coburg’s Santoo Shrestha and Croydon’s Alice Xia won the Open Men’s and Women’s singles titles respectively. Overall, Croydon & Scorpio were the most successful in the Junior & Senior events.” 

“I would like to thank Kameron Chan, who did a stellar job entering all the team results into the RCPS software and also ran the Veterans tournament, Terry Saundry who assisted at the Dandenong venue. We are already looking towards 2025 with a hope to reach 140 teams!” 

Overall, the Metro Championships was a huge success, seeing a great turnout of players and volunteers across both facilities. A massive thankyou to Greg Bristowe, Kameron Chan and all the other members involved in making this another fantastic event for everyone who took part! 

To view the action photos taken from the tournament please click here