The first few days of the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games have seen the men’s team put in some great results and the women’s team come away with a fantastic bronze medal performance.

Our Victorian stars have been providing plenty of brilliant moments for us to cheer for back home with legend Jian Fang Lay displaying her usual skill and talent on the table whilst Dillon Chambers, Finn Luu and Nicholas Lum have all come out firing on debut.

On the opening day, the women’s team defeated Malaysia in style beating one of the more dangerous teams in the group stage 3-0 to start their campaign. Jian came in for the first singles match and to no one’s surprise showed her experience and put in a dominant performance winning 11-1, 11-6, 11-7.

“We were a little bit nervous going into the game, but I think that is good,” said National Head Coach (able-bodied) John Murphy.

“We started well, winning the doubles. Having Jian come in, she is experienced, and she is comfortable playing against those defensive players as well,” he said.

Following their win over Malaysia the girls defeated Mauritius.

The men’s kicked off their campaign with a tough 1-3 loss to Malaysia, debutants Nic Lum and Finn Luu took the opening doubles match right down to the wire, eventually losing the fifth game 11-6 after coming back to win the 3^rd and 4^th.

Finn and Nic faced a similar fate in the second match against Canada going down in a narrow five game doubles battle 11-6, 8-11, 10-12, 11-3, 9-11.

Dillon Chambers in his first ever Commonwealth Games appearance did not disappoint winning in 3-1 before Finn pulled off a brilliant 4^th match comeback to keep the Aussies alive. Luu dropped the first two games 6-11, 6-11 before stunning his Canadian opponent 12-10, 13-11, 11-9 to set Dillon up with the chance to win the match.

Chambers ended as the star of the show against Canada, beating Eugene Wang and winning the deciding match against Jeremy Hazin.

“It is the best moment of my career so far,” Chambers said.

“Obviously it is two good wins for me. I normally go in second favourite against these guys (Eugine Wang & Jeremy Hazin) with the pressure on top and the team around me it was even more sweet.”

On day two the women’s team beat Maldives in another 3-0 performance with Jian Fang Lay combing with Min Hyung Jee in the opening doubles match winning 11-4, 11-6, 11-6. They eventually went on to have their first loss of the competition against Singapore in the Semi-Final to set up the bronze medal face off against Wales.

The Victorian trio of Nic Lum, Finn Luu and Dillon Chambers dominated against Mauritius winning 3-0 but unfortunately other results in their group did not fall their way seeing the Men’s team miss out on making the finals.

Bouncing back from their loss to Singapore the girls were on fire again taking out Wales in the Bronze Medal match with their fourth 3-0 victory from five games. Jian once again teamed up with Min Hyung Jee in the doubles match winning 11-5, 11-5, 11-8, before closing out the victory for the women in the winning singles match 11-7, 12-10, 11-4.

The team are back on the tables today for the start of the singles competition with six Victorians in action across the evening and early hours of tomorrow morning.

Finn Luu: Match 1 – 7:05pm aest / Match 2 – 10:35pm aest

Danni Di Toro: Match 1 – 7:40pm aest / Match 2 – 2:45am aest

Qian Yang: Match 1 – 7:40pm aest / Match 2 – 2:10am aest

Lina Lei: Match 1 – 7:40pm aest / Match 2 – 2:10am aest

Lin Ma: Match 1 – 9:25pm aest / Match 2 – 4:30am aest

Dillon Chambers: Match 1 – 1:30am aest / Match 2 – 5:40am aest

FULL SCHEDULE AND RESULTS