Ma Lin and Dandenong’s Ellen Walker have won the 2021 Ballarat Open Men’s and Women’s Championships over the weekend at the Ballarat Table Tennis Centre in Wendouree. As another great turn out from Victorian Juniors highlighted a fantastic weekend.

The tournament was completed across two days with the Junior Championships on Saturday while the Senior/Para titles were contested on Sunday.

Ma Lin came into the Open Men’s Singles as the number one seed and dispatched all three of his group stage opponents in straight sets. Lin dropped the first two games of his quarter final match against Coburg's Zachary Anstey before coming back strong in the match and moving on to defeat Yugandh Zende (Balwyn United) and Xavier Dixon (Loops) on his way to his first Open victory of the year.

In the Open Women’s Singles, Ellen Walker (Dandenong) also took out her maiden Open title of the year. Walker was the third seed heading into the event and defeated Loops’ Cherry Le. Walker also took out the U/19’s Singles on Saturday.

Croydon’s Bradley Paton earned himself the U/21 Men’s Singles title with a four-set victory over Matt Avers (Sunraysia). Loops’ Junior star Cherry Le turned the tables in the U/21 Women’s Singles, she defeated Ellen Walker straight sets to claim the win. Le also won the U/17 and U/15 Girl’s titles.

It was Coburg domination in the O/30’s with Craig Carter fighting off Tarneit’s Reddy Tatikonda in the final of the O/30 Men’s Singles. While Cheryl Huang beat hometown player Emma Wang in the Women’s.

Ballarat’s own Rory Carroll entered the Para Singles as the top seed and battled through a pair of six set matches on his way to a 3-0 record to win the title.

On Saturday Rocky Chen kicked off Coburg’s successful weekend defeating Winuk Rathnasinghe (Dandenong) in the final of the U/19 Boy’s Singles.

Geelong’s Richard Li continued his fantastic form for the year with a win over Justin Kwan (Croydon) in the U/17 Boy’s Singles.

Ballarat Centre Manager and Coach, Adam Pegg said, “It was fantastic to see so many of the best up and coming Juniors from around the State come to Ballarat to compete in our tournament, it was an amazing turnout with nearly 90 entries for the Junior tournament.”

Just one of many people to notice the excellent turn out by TTV’s Junior players at this year’s tournaments.

“While there were lower numbers for the Senior tournament the competition was equally strong with some brilliant game play by some of the top Senior players in Victoria,” Adam added.

“It was also fantastic to have the current Australian Number one player Heming Hu and former Australian champion and Olympian Russell Lavalle in Ballarat coaching the next generation of players. It was also wonderful to see Ballarat's own Rory Carroll win the Para Singles and Emma Wang get runner up in the O/30 Women’s singles.”