2012 Australian Open Table Tennis Championships - Greg's Thoughts

From Greg Letts, former About.com Guide

After last year's teams format fiasco, I was quite prepared to give the 2012 Australian Open a miss this year. But with the news of a change in format that attempted to cater to both elite and rank and file competitors, I was persuaded to give it another go by my mates, who were keen to give the teams competition a try for the first time in years.

I didn't bother with any specific training for the Open, since my focus is mainly on Veteran's competition these days. I was to pay the price for that decision during the week of competition, but I'll get to that later. At any rate, I was determined to play hard, but without being too worried about my results.

The Australian Open was held at the Brisbane Table Tennis Center, which is located at 86 Green Terrace, Windsor, in sunny Queensland, on the 1st to 7th July 2012. And fortunately the weather co-operated nicely, with a series of days with blue skies and warm sunshine during the week of competition, although being winter, it was still a little nippy in the playing hall itself.

It had been 8 years since my last visit to this venue, when I competed at the 2004 Australian Open, so I was looking forward to coming back again and seeing what had changed in the meantime. And once I walked through the doors, it was obvious that quite a few things were different, which I'll discuss on the next page.

Brisbane Table Tennis Center
Ph: 07 3357 8992
Email: brisbane@tabletennisqld.org
86 Green Tce, WINDSOR QLD 4030