Fee Structure Moves Towards Population Base (but not for long)

The regular annual debate on charges levied by NZTTA on District Associations resulted in a major change this year: a decision to base affiliation fees on overall population figures rather than player numbers. As this would cause Associations with a relatively small number of registered players that were operating within large centres of population to face large fee increases, the move to the new structure was to be phased in over five years.

In the event, the process was put on permanent hold after only one year and future fees were set by negotiation, taking into account potential for growth, present player numbers, and affordability. Steps were taken to avoid automatically increasing the affiliation fees charged to progressive Associations simply because they had grown their player numbers.

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Peter Hirst Relinquishes Top Coaching Position

Peter Hirst resigned during the year after an eight year term as National Director of Coaching. From May 1985 until the end of 1988 the appointment was a full-time salaried position but was scaled back in 1989 when Peter was appointed Executive Director of the Coaching Association of New Zealand. Concurrent with his term as Director of Coaching Peter was also Convener of Selectors and was automatically a member of the Management Committee and National Council throughout the eight year period.

During his years as full-time Coaching Director he travelled the country extensively, giving as many as four school table tennis demonstrations a day and conducting club and association coaching sessions in the evening. His activities in later years were centred round coach education, national training camps and managing teams on overseas trips.

He remained available as a consultant and continued to serve NZ Table Tennis in a variety of roles after relinquishing his official position.

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World Championships

The men’s team of Hagen Bower, Peter Jackson and Andrew Hubbard began their quest to improve their world ranking at the World Championships in Sweden with an easy win over Seychelles and a narrow 2-3 loss to Spain. They then moved to Stage Two where they faced four other teams who had finished second in their group. Wins over Wales and Ireland secured 43rd place. While this was technically a drop of four places from their 1991 ranking, it was the first World Championships since the break-up of the Soviet Union and seven of the countries ahead of them were new nations. The team therefore quite rightly deemed their performance to be an improvement on 1991.

The women’s team (Tracey Epps and Melanie Low) lacked experience at this level and their 59th place was well within expectations. They had wins over Namibia and Ireland.

Peter Jackson won through to the third round in the men’s individual singles, losing then to Jaromir Truska of Slovakia 20-22; 18-21.

China dominated the women’s team event but in a tremendously exciting men’s team final the host country Sweden beat China 5-4.

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Men’s World Cup

Independent of the above event, competition for the World Cup is restricted to only 16 players. One place is reserved for an Oceania player and Peter Jackson retained the right to this place as the 1990 Oceania Men’s Singles title-holder. That win had entitled him to play in the 1991 and 1992 World Cups as well but with the 1992 Oceania Championships deferred until August, 1993 (just days before the World Cup) the result of that event could not prevent Peter from again representing Oceania in this year’s World Cup.

Peter had very little chance of progressing beyond group play – his group included 1992 Olympic Champion Jan-Ove Waldner.

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Age-groups added to Oceania Championships; Under 14 Stars Miss Global Event

The two-year cycle for these Championships was disrupted when Papua New Guinea withdrew their offer to host the event in 1992 and this coincided with the need to expand the tournament by adding age-group events to the programme. This was necessary to meet the qualification requirements for the Global Youth Championships, introduced in January, 1993. A male and female Oceania representative had to be found for this event in three age-groups - Under 20, Under 17 and Under 14.

Australia offered to host the deferred Championships in Melbourne in August. The New Zealand team totaled 30 players and five officials - greatly enlarged from previous years due to the additional age-groups.

The men’s team (Peter Jackson (pictured), Barry Griffiths, Hagen Bower and Andrew Hubbard) did extraordinarily well to beat Australia 4-1 and win the Men’s Team Championship. The women (Sarah Finch and Raewyn Young) lost the final to Australia 0-5. A total of five teams contested the Under 20 events, all finishing either 3rd, 4th or 6th. Some of these teams contained Under 17 players as there were no team events for either the Under 17 or Under 14 age-groups.

Peter Jackson was runner-up in the open men’s singles, thus losing his Oceania title. Lisa Mitchell was runner-up in the Under 17 girls’ singles. The big winners were two NZ Under 14 players Paul Innes and Clara So, who won their respective singles events. But the triumph was followed by a major disappointment. After celebrating not just their Oceania titles but also their automatic entry into the Global Youth Championships, they were later stunned by the news that ITTF had deleted the Under 14 events from the upcoming 1994 Championships.

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Singles Group Play Adopted in all Events at NZ Championships

After being trialed in 1992 in the Open and C Grade singles events, round-robin group play was adopted in all singles events this year, with group winners progressing to post-section knock out draws.

There was also a major change to the method of grading teams for the inter-association contests. The top four teams played round-robin to determine their post-section seeding positions. All other teams were in groups with group winners joining the top four teams in post-section play to compete for the A Grade title. Group losers played in knock-out draws for B and C Grade.

To accommodate the extra matches, team contests comprised only six singles and one doubles.

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New Resources Produced for Kiwi Table Tennis

With the support of a generous $12,400 grant from the Hillary Commission, a glossy Kiwi Table Tennis manual and a twelve minute video were produced. Both had generic elements common to all sports as they were part of a general KiwiSport promotion but the Table Tennis specific portions were largely the work of Coaching Director Peter Hirst and Kiwi Table Tennis co-ordinator Barry Wynks. Administration Officer John Kiley was also involved with script-writing for both resources.

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International Tournament of Noumea

This event was held in New Caledonia in July. New Zealand gratefully accepted an invitation to compete and the Ligue Caledonienne de Tennis de Table generously provided free accommodation and contributed to the cost of air fares for a New Zealand team of three players and one official.

As well as teams from Australia and the Pacific, two teams from France also took part. All teams were mixed gender with each contest comprising two men’s singles, one women’s singles, one men’s doubles and one mixed doubles. New Zealand finished third after beating Australia twice – in group play and in the 3rd/4th play-off.

The team was Peter Jackson, Barry Griffiths and Tracey Epps, with Martin Duffy the Manager.

Peter had an excellent tournament and in the individual events beat Australian No 1 Penh Huy Quach in the quarter-final 22-20 in the fifth after losing the first two games. He then lost in the semi-final to highly ranked Damien Eloi (France) 20-22; 19-21; 18-21.

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Under 17 Girls Beat Every State Except Victoria at Australian Junior Championships

In an excellent performance at the Australian Under 17 and Under 15 Championships in Canberra, the Under 17 girls’ team of Vicki Garrett, Kirsty-Anne Giles, Lisa Mitchell and Tracey Phillips finished second behind Victoria. Their wins over Western Australia, Queensland and a Presidents team were all 6-3, they beat New South Wales 7-2 and South Australia 9-0. They lost to Victoria 2-7. This second placing made it two in a row. In 1992 the Under 17 girls had also finished second to Victoria but their winning margins were narrower and the loss to Victoria was 0-9. Vicki and Tracey had also been members of the 1992 team.

Kirsty-Anne Giles and Tracey Phillips were the only medal winners in the New Zealand team of 16, gaining bronze in the Under 17 Girls Doubles.

Both boys teams finished 5th and the Under 15 girls finished 6th.

The other team members were: (Under 17 boys) Brendon Adam, Chris Herlihy, Stuart Jones, Conrad Lee; (Under 15 boys) Kirk George, Paul Innes; Antony Matai’a, Jan Ng; (Under 15 girls) Belinda Beazer, Melissa Beazer, Tracey McLauchlan, Laura-Lee Smith. The officials were Peter Hirst, Martin Duffy, Ron Garrett and Andrew Marr.

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Training Trip to Malaysia

NZTTA approached the Malaysian National Association for permission to bring a party of New Zealand players to Malaysia to train and compete with their players. Permission was granted and seven players made the trip under the supervision of Martin Duffy (pictured) and Murray Finch.

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Association Awards

A new initiative was launched this year to recognize outstanding achievement by individual Associations. Nominations for Association Awards could only be made by Regional Councillors. Two South Island Associations were the inaugural winners of these awards: Southland for bringing about a significant increase in membership by way of a series of original events; and South Canterbury for wide exposure of the sport through Kiwi Table Tennis.

The awards took the form of a small engraved plaque and were presented at the Annual General Meeting.

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East Waikato Association Disaffiliates

The decision by East Waikato Association to disaffiliate after thirty years of continuous NZTTA membership was received with considerable regret. The district had earlier been affiliated for four years from 1947 to 1950 under the name of Waikato East and between the two periods clubs in the area had remained active under the auspices of the Waikato Association. Waikato split into Hamilton, Central Waikato and East Waikato in 1963.

Sadly, the year also saw the demise of another Association, Mid-Canterbury, which had been a member of the NZTTA family since 1978.

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