As the clock struck 9:30am, on Saturday 10^th June, the 71^st annual Country Championships was underway.

Prior to play, an opening ceremony was held with Table Tennis Victoria (TTV) CEO Gen Dohrmann welcoming and thanking everyone for making the trip out to the high-quality Gippsland Regional Indoor Sports Stadium (GRISS).

Following Dohrmann’s welcome, was a thank you from LaTrobe City Council Mayor Kellie O’Callaghan who expressed her excitement to have another tournament in the region.

In a Country Championships tradition, the Andrew Wilson Memorial award is given to a player who best displays dedication to the sport, team spirit, impeccable demeanour, and is a worthy ambassador for table tennis in regional Victoria. It is named in honour of the late Andrew Wilson who was a country player who exemplified team spirit and gentlemanly conduct, the country championships was one of Andrews favourite tournaments. To this day, Andrew is still missed dearly by those who knew and were close to him.

The recipient of the award for 2022 was Murray Heather from Yarrawonga/Mulwala Table Tennis Association. Murray is always there to help the juniors and is very passionate about teams going to the country championships. This was Murray's 48th year of attending the country championships.

The structure of the tournament consisted of rounds one and two played on Saturday, rounds three, four and the individuals tournament played on Sunday with round five played on Monday with results calculated and grade shields presented to winners once play was complete.

The A Grade Shield was won by the Geelong team, of Matthew Avers, Ben Taylor and Calden Lyons who won all four of their rounds, with the Albury Wodonga trio of Max and Levi Geering alongside Sam Miller finishing runners-up.

In B1, it was tightly contested between Sunbury Black and Melton with both teams finishing on 4 wins. With the Sunbury team of David Jumar, Shane Mallia and John Scott winning beating Melton in their head to head match up, Sunbury were determined the winners.

The B2 Shield was won easily by the Leongatha team of Michael Chang, Neil Chilver, Michael Grist and Dirk Holwerda, winning all 5 rounds ahead of runners up Geelong.

In the other grades, Traralgon won four shields, with Wonthaggi, TTV Composite, Yarrawonga and Bairnsdale each taking home one each.

In the Individual’s tournament Geelong’s Matt Avers and Traralgon's Stephen Warr went head-to-head in the Open Men’s Singles with Avers coming out on top in a three-set match. Bairnsdale’s Danica Alburo went back-to-back taking out the Open Women’s Singles title, defeating Victoria Male.

Ben Taylor and Matthew Avers (Geelong) defeated Albury Wodonga’s Levi and Max Geering in the Open Men’s Doubles, while Danica Alburo and Hayley Blythman took out the Open Women’s Doubles with Danica and Danilo Alburo taking out the Mixed Doubles title.

You can read the full individual results HERE.

Back for her second Country Championships, TTV CEO Gen Dohrmann was pleased with the tournament and the success of another event held at GRISS.

“With the success of the Victorian Open at GRISS in April, we knew the Country Championships was going to be an even better experience,” said Dohrmann.

“The facilities and equipment provided by the GRISS stadium are second-to-none and feedback from the participants re-iterated how good the venue really is for table tennis.”

“A big congratulations to everyone who competed and a big shout out to Geelong who took out the top A1 division and to Traralgon for using their home court advantage to take out several shields in the other grades.”

“A big thank you to Claire Montgomery and Graeme Ireland for managing the event and thank you to the team of TTV staff, Deakin University Sports Society and Federation University interns for making it all happen.”

“I also want to extend my gratitude to the LaTrobe City Council for being an absolute pleasure to work with to get the facilities set-up and packed away pre and post tournament.”

TTV would also like to thank all the help from participants from Yarrawonga, Traralgon and Adam Pegg from Ballarat for assisting with the set up and pack up of all the tables and barriers, to Costa Farms for the boxes of bananas that were supplied as well as Alan Wilson for his support and presenting the Andrew Wilson Memorial Award and Mary LeGassick for presenting the Alan Cleaves awards and finally Kameron Chan for uploading the results to Ratings Central.

We can’t wait to see all the players and clubs next year for the 72^nd edition of the Victorian Country Championships.