MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! The goal for the Australian men’s team at this World Championships was very clear – finish in the top two teams at in Division 3 and get ourselves back to Division 2. I’ve been surprised by the depth and quality of the players in Division 3 and it says a lot about the standard of world table tennis these days.

When I last left you, we were about to take on Venezuela in the group final. A win would see us finish first in the group and go straight to the quarter-final and a loss meant a match against a nr 3 team from one of the other groups.

Venezuela have a very vocal and passionate team with a group of young players in their early 20’s. I started against their nr 2, again struggled with my timing in the first set and just got over the line 11-9. I won the 2nd set 11-1 and led 10-0 in the 3rd set which was a combination of good play by me and poor play from the Venezuelan. David Powell went down in straight sets to their nr 1 and Oh Nam Ho continued his good form with a solid 3-0 win against the nr 3.

I had the opportunity to close off the match if I could beat their nr 1. Pretty much all the nr 1 players in the Division 3 teams has a certain skill which they are really, really good at. The Venezuelan nr 1 has a tenacious forehand topspin which he can just keep on hitting faster each shot. Once he is allowed to open up with a forehand topspin he is relentless. I tactics would obviously be to play as many backhand to backhand rallies as possible. The match would turn out to be pretty typical of my play here at the Worlds.

The first set was nothing short of disgraceful. Mistimed mistake after mistimed mistake on both simple shots and difficult shots. I was left scratching my head in confusion about what to do next. Without knowing what was going wrong I had little choice but to keep on trying to play my normal game. Suddenly everything clicked and I’d won the next three sets before I knew it. I hadn’t changed a thing; I felt like I was hitting the ball exactly the same way.

We polished off Lithuania 3-0 in final group match, which saw the return of Robbie Frank who had twisted his ankle a few days earlier. Bob’s ankle was still pretty swollen but he played well to beat the Lithuanian nr 1 3-1.

Winning the group meant that we had a day off next up. We were drawn to play the winner of Venezuela and Colombia in the quarter-final. Normally the nr 1 and nr 2 in a group would go into opposite halves of the draw but apparently not at the Worlds. Playing many continuous days of competition is hard work both mentally and physically and I was glad to have a day to recuperate.

I started again against the same Venezuelan nr 2 but it could just as well have been a completely different player. This new guy was suddenly flicking my serves aggressively, punching most of my opening backhand topspins for winners and had developed one of the more difficult serves I’ve ever faced. I led 9-7 in the first set but lost 11-9 and trailed for all of the 2nd set, eventually losing 11-8. The match was one of the few times so far in the tournament that I wasn’t unhappy with my play – I was just getting beaten.

I focused my attention on improving the placements of my shots – he was smashing everything with his backhand and looping strongly from his forehand so I knew I had to use his middle more than I was doing. He was flicking my tomahawk serve well so I started mixing up the placement and spin as much as I could. I still felt like I was on the back foot and just hanging in. I managed take the next two sets 11-9, 11-8. The fifth set was neck and neck until 6-6 before I pulled away to lead 9-6. His next shot hit the edge of the table and his two following serves were unplayable, low sliding sidespin serves wide to my forehand. An unforced error meant I was down match point at 10-9. I served a wide tomahawk serve short to his forehand which he pushed long to my backhand. I’m pleased that my backhand loop held up under pressure and I was able to level at 10-10. I couldn’t close out the match on my first match point at 11-10 up but another wide tomahawk did the trick I and took the fifth set 13-11. I was relieved and happy to take the win! Robbie played very well to beat the Venezuelan nr 1 comfortably before Oh Nam ended proceedings with another emphatic 3-0 drubbing.

We were one step away from achieving our goal. I didn’t know what to expect from our next opponent – Congo. I didn’t know any of their players and hadn’t seen them play. I started against their nr 2 as per usual. He had an interesting playing style which was actually a lot harder to play against than I first thought. I took the first set 11-4 and was feeling good. He didn’t have much of an attacking game but had a good short push and very good blocking game. He won the next set 11-6. Even when I was getting in with strong first attacks, he was able to get perfect angles on his block and work me around the court. I scraped through the next two set 11-8 and came back from 9-7 down to win the fourth 11-9.

Robbie played the nr 1 in the next match. He has a good world ranking at 268 and I could see why. A strong allround player with a good blocking game, good topspin from both sides and a good short push. Bob won a set but was generally outplayed by a very worthy opponent. Oh Nam continued his great form winning 3 games to 1 which left me the opportunity to finish the match.

I’ve often noticed that my tomahawk serve’s effectiveness in a match has little to do with the opponent’s playing level. Almost all of the really top world players that I’ve used it against have struggled with it (Wang Liqin, Ryu Seung Min, Wang Hao) whilst much, much lower ranked players often go to town on it. I’m still trying to work out why. The same was true in my 3rd Division matches here: the better players had difficulties and the lower players didn’t. The guy from Congo had major problems with it from start to finish. I played well in the rallies and enjoyed some newfound consistency with my topspinning game. It was by far my best match for the Worlds took a straight-forward 3-0 victory. We had done it! We are guaranteed to play 2nd Division at the next World Team Championships against some very strong countries.

I’ll write a general summary of the event and my thoughts in the next few days.