HAS THE SUNSHINE COAST GOT THE BEST VETERAN PLAYERS IN AUSTRALIA
Above - Alan Bruhn and Martin Tribe show off their medals from the International Table Tennis Federation’s Tour Event in Townsville
Before you get too excited about this, the answer is probably no. But, with the recent achievements of a whole host of Sunshine Coast players, we are certainly being noticed on the National arena.
The latest results in are from the International Table Tennis Federation’s Tour Event in Townsville (September 11-15, 2019). Our two representatives, Alan Bruhn and Martin Tribe, had a mammoth 41 matches each in 4 days and came back with some outstanding results against players from all over Australia, the US, China, India, Russia and many other Asian countries.
A quick summary of their results:-
SINGLES
Martin Tribe excelled to reach the Semi-Final of the Mens 60+ Singles where he played Wayne Heginbotham (top ranked Australian player in Over 60's) who went on to win the event. This was an outstanding performance by Martin when you consider there were 27 entries from all over the world.
Martin Tribe also won the Consolation Final of the Mens Over 65 for those who did not make the final 6.
Alan Bruhn won the Consolation Final of the Mens Over 70 for those who did not make the final 4.
DOUBLES
Open Men’s Doubles
By finishing 2nd in their group in the Group Stage, Martin + Alan, made the Main Draw but were eliminated.
2. Open Men’s Doubles – Over 60
Of the 18 teams entered, Martin + Alan made it all the way to the Semi Finals where they were beaten 11-3, 11-9, 11-8 by the eventual winners, W Heginbotham + T Morato. Martin + Alan then won the BRONZE MEDAL MATCH 11-7, 4-11, 11-10, 12-10.
3. Men’s Doubles – Over 65
Martin + Alan won their Group to go into the Main Draw. They were beaten in the S-Final but won the BRONZE MEDAL MATCH 11-7, 15-13, 11-6
TEAMS
Mens Teams 60-69
Martin and Alan were very unlucky not to have made the S-Final of this event. In their group of 5 teams, the Australia 3 team won all 4 rubbers to win the group and advance to the final 4, while 3 teams finished equal with 2 wins and 2 losses including China 1 and Martin + Alan’s team, Australia 2. However they went to matches won and China 1 went through to the final 4 while Martin + Alan were relegated to the playoff for positions 5-8.
Obviously Martin + Alan were in the harder group, as Gold (China 1) and Silver (Australia 3) were won by teams in their group.
They went on to gain 6th position.
In summary Highlight was arguably Martin making the s-Final of the 60+ Singles. In addition both Alan and Martin won Consolation Singles Finals in their respective age groups and, together, they won 2 BRONZE MEDALS in doubles, and 6th spot in the Team Event. Not a bad effort.
And back at the Sunshine Coast there are a whole host of veteran players who have represented Queensland and had all sorts of successes over the last few years – Paul Green, Linda Yapp, Judy Chin, Jerrod Thomson, Ken Hay, Ian Oakley, Michael Wilson, Jim Kenworthy, Patrick Keating, Murray
McKinnon, Mark Bradshaw ……… The list seems to be getting longer each year and more accomplished. We are certainly making our presence felt.
