Player of the Week Award - week of 13th of March

Division 1

Many players were probably not aware but we had arguably the most accomplished player to ever play Sunshine Coast Club fixtures here last Tuesday. The lucky players to match it up with Patrick were Adam Wood, Colin Noh and Ken Hay.

Patrick Wuertz was passing by with his partner and called in to say gidday and ended up subbing in for fixtures.

Patrick is presently High Performance Officer for ITTF-Oceania as well as Head Coach of Health, Wellness and Table Tennis, where he is responsible for their high performance squad.

Patrick previously worked for the largest German state table tennis federation, developing and implementing training concepts for high performance players as well as conducting coaching courses. More recently, Patrick was the Director of Coaching and High Performance for Table Tennis Queensland, as well as the TTA National Squad Coach and Coaching Education Project Officer.

Patrick is also a very accomplished player. He competed semi professionally in Germany before coming to Australia where he is mainly coaching but still manages to play from time to time. He won the WA Open in 2015 among other high level tournaments and is presently ranked 2nd behind Bruno in Qld.

Patrick ran the coaching course we had in 2016 on the Sunshine Coast at which about a dozen of us gained accreditation. Apparently he loves the Sunshine Coast and is keen to eventually settle up this way.

PS Thank you to the ITTF Oceania Website which I have largely plagiarised for his background info.

PSS If you would like to see Patrick in action, try the following links:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpmAoKEs_K0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY1XSaqXBM0

Image below is Parick playing Bruno 2016

Division 2

This weeks award goes to Desley Payne. Desley, over the years, has shown herself to be a very reliable player. While she is always a force to be reckoned with in singles, her main strength is in doubles. This is shown by winning the B grade doubles title a number of times including in 2014 with Gordon Holden where they beat Colin Rule and Alex Malancioui in the final and in 2015 where she teamed with Gary Kiorgaard to beat Dale Parkes and Alex Milligan in the final.

But the main reason for Desley’s win this week is that she is a true team player and a real asset to the club. Desley is always keen to be involved in whatever is on. Whether it be a working bee, an inter-club challenge such as the ones we have had with Pomona/Noosa, or the East Coast Vets Teams TT Competition last weekend where she teamed with Linda Yapp on the Gold Coast.

Desley has taken a big lead with organising and looking after the club’s equipment. Unfortunately many of us are lazy and careless with equipment and Desley has put a great deal of effort into improving our general attitude.

And, probably best of all, she is just a nice person. Well done Desley.