The 2021 Croydon Masters Open is set to take place next week with plenty of top Victorian and Australian talent preparing to hit the tables. The tournament will be split across four dates with the first group of Veterans (O/60 and Older),  juniors and seniors playing between March 6 and 8 while the O/30, 40 & 50 Veterans categories will play the following week on March 14.

Just like the Dandenong Open, the format for the Croydon Masters will be aged singles only with round robin groups of 4, 5 or 6. The top two go into the main knockout draw and 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th or 6^th go into the consolation knockout draw.

As we get closer and closer to Tokyo it will be another great opportunity to see some of our potential Tokyo Olympians in action as players like David Powell, Steph Sang and Heming Hu all look to take out the 2021 title.

Strong performances from Richard Li, Sanish Ambekar, Parleen Kaur, Craig Carter and plenty of others at the Dandenong Open will be sure to have each of these great players filled with confidence.

“With Junior, Senior & Veterans, we look forward to each day for different reasons,” said Croydon Pennant Coordinator and Tournament Director Greg Bristowe.

“With the Juniors, it is always great to see the future stars, and in some cases the current stars compete against each other.

“The Open events, we get to see and experience the very best players from Victoria and from interstate play for our prestigious title. The Men's title is actually named after one of our Life Members and an early contributor to the Championships in Fran Keyhoe.

“And with the Veterans, it's a chance to see some of the players that have been playing for a long time, mixed in with some good table tennis as well.”

While it will be fantastic to see some top-level players giving it their all, as Greg expressed, it is great to just be able to play tournament table tennis again.

“It's been a long 12 months that all of Victoria has experienced with the whole COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, our tournament was the last tournament played in 2020 before we all basically stopped table tennis for the remainder of the year,” he said.

“We are optimistic that we can get back into some kind of normal with our table tennis and we look forward to seeing so many regular faces from the tournament circuit compete.”

With players spending 2020 at home with no tournaments it is tough to get an idea on which players are coming in as the favourites, although there is a junior talent that Bristowe said has made some excellent improvements to her game and we will certainly be keeping an eye out.

“This is the great unknown, given the 12 months of little table tennis activity. Naturally all eyes are on the top players and how they will go, but it will also be interesting to see the progression of the juniors. One player we noticed earlier this year has really improved in the junior ranks is Victoria Zhang, she is really striking the ball well.” Said Bristowe.

“As the Tournament Director, but also as a Croydon Committee member, we are just so happy that we can get back to playing and look forward to seeing so many play the sport we all love.”