Spring League
Spring League has started and will be played over 7 rounds through to 25 November. Note that this competition will be decided entirely through the Round-Robin matches. There will be NO finals rounds.
The third round continued in the pattern of tight matches with still no bonus-points wins (13 or more matches wins required) but this week, we had one good win and two draws. The Hyenas (Maxwell Hansen and co.) came back from their week off (with a bye) and had a good 12:8 win over the Bears (Jim Brusola and co.). Meanwhile, in even tighter matches, the Kings of Spin (Miko Kirschbaum and co.) shared points in a 10:10 encounter with the Leopards (Jae Lee and co.), and the Bats (Cristin Batchelor and co.) drew 10:10 with the Avengers (Akshay Aneesh and co.). The Sharks (Tim Seaholme and co.) had a bye this week. That means that with the Sharks having a week off, the Leopards have taken the lone lead at the top on 8 points, with the Sharks now in second place on 6 points each, joined by the Kings of Spin, who are also on 6 points and the Bears on 5 points. Of the four leading teams, the Sharks are the only ones who have had their Bye, while the other contenders will have to sit out proceedings at some stage.
In the individual standings, we are down to just 3 players, Jae Lee, Matthew Ball and Tim Seaholme to have remained undefeated, but of those, only Jae Lee has played 6 matches, and is yet to drop even a set. Xiaoqian Cao continues to lead the standings in the Most-Improved player category, with a ratings gain of 79 points, but the standings are getting very tight. Tao Feng has gained 76 points gained and Henry Giles 70 points. Six more players have had ratings gains of more than 40 points, and it’s fair to say that the competition is far from over.
Results and standings are available here.
Recent Events: 2025
2025 Manawatu Residential Championships
Sunday 8th June (Age groups)
Tuesdays: 17th June to 8th July (Graded)
Age group events: Starts Sunday 8th June. In the juniors, events range from under 19 down to under 11 including a novice event for under 15 players. In the veteran age groups, we have over 40 and over 60 events. There is also the very popular Generation Doubles event where two family members can team up. One player must be a junior. Entries close on Tuesday 3rd June. Entries must be either given or emailed to mattb.tabletennis@gmail.com. Full details here.
Graded events have been played across the previous Tuesday nights from 17th to 1 July. The Residents’ Championship will conclude with the Finals’ Night on 8th July.
Full details here.
Junior Happenings: Term 4 2025
Junior Holiday Programme
Next one will be 20th-23rd January 2026
Players must be between 8-15 years of age. From 1-3 pm each day.
Junior Club
6th October - 8th December: 3:30 - 5:00pm Mondays
Started Monday 6th October. There are 9 sessions in Term 4 with the last session on the 8th of December. No play on 27th October. Cost is $7 each time or can pay $63 for the term. Junior Club is a great session for new players with a good mix of game play, coaching. skill based games and challenges. Spaces are still available. If your child is keen to attend in Term 4, please let Matt know.
Junior Spring League
Commences: 21st October - 25th November
More details are here. This league is suitable for junior players who enjoy playing matches. It runs for 6 weeks starting on the 21st October and finishing on the 25th November. The exciting feature of this league is the timed matches (If enough entries are received). Players must be able to arrive by 4:20 pm each week so we can start at 4:30 pm sharp. Cost is $42 per player. Entries close on 18th October. Contact Matt (details below) to enter.
Junior Coaching
Commences: Oct 9th & Oct 10th: 4:00 - 5:30pm Thursdays & Fridays
Our 11 years and under session is on Thursdays for Terms 1 & 4. Invited juniors and players 12 and over continue on Fridays. Commences 9th Oct & 10th Oct. Cost is $12 each time. There are 9 sessions on both days in Term 4. Fine to pay per session for the term. If a player misses a session, they are not charged. Please get in touch with Matt (details are below) know if your child would like to attend coaching in Term 4.
Junior Spring Tournament - Sunday 2nd November
This is our final seasonal tournament of the year. It will run from 1-5/5:30 pm and cost $15 per player. Please see here for all the details. Entries close on Wednesday 29th October with Matt
Other Manawatu Events from last year
Manawatu Open
Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd September 2024
This was our main event of the year, held in the Barber Hall & Waldegrave Lounge. Open and Graded events were held on Saturday. Age groups on Sunday. Age groups ranged from Under 11 up to Over 70.
We were also hosting the Inaugural Ping Pong Parkinson's NZ Tournament in conjunction with our Open this year.
All results are available via Tournament Software -
https://ttnz.tournamentsoftware.com/tournament/F428BC00-4901-41FE-83A3-120E345321F9.
Matthew Ball’s contact details
Matthew Ball, phone: 0273 412 246 or mattb.tabletennis@gmail.com.
Banking details: 02-0628-0189072-00
Fourth (and final) competition day: 23 August
Manawatu’s Premier Individual Table Tennis Competition. The 2025 edition of Manawatu's Premier Individual Table Tennis Competition has concluded with the final rounds 7 and 8 played on Saturday, 23 August. As for the earlier competition rounds, Matthew Ball again won both rounds, with Pepe Mag-Abo coming second in the morning round, followed by Akshay Aneesh and Kui Chen. Akshay Aneesh came second in the afternoon, followed by Pepe Mag-Abo and Larn Sweeney. The overall standings (based on players’ 5 best rounds) was won by Matthew Ball with the perfect score of 80 points, followed by Akshay Aneesh (75 points), Manish Ahlawat (71 points), Larn Sweeney (60 points), Pepe Mag-Abo (56 points) and Cristin Batchelor and Jim Brusola (53 points, each).
This concludes Super 16 for the 2025 season.
Detailed results and final standings of this year’s Super 16 Competition are available here.
All-Stars/Drop-In League 2025
The latest round of the 2025 All-Stars/ Drop-In League was played on 7 October. Akshay Aneesh won that round ahead of Matthew Ball, Tim Seaholme and Jae Lee. Jim Brusola (204.6 points) leads the overall standings ahead of Matthew Ball (166.9 points), Miko Kirschbaum (161.4 points) and Kien Le (147.2 points) and .
Progressive results and standings for the All-Stars / Drop-In League are available here.
Most-Improved Player in 2025
The race for this year’s Most-Improved player is developing more and more into a tight contest between Lehan Feng and Emma Chen, but Lehan has been able to stretch his points gain over recent weeks, and with only four weeks left in this year’s competition, time seems to be running out for Emma to make her mark. Henry Giles, is currently in third place and poised to get closer to the leading contenders, but time is running short for him as well. Tao Feng is remaining in fourth place. A graph with this year’s players’ rating gains is here.
Ratings adjustments and progress in the Order of Merit standings are based on results from this week’s round of All-Stars/Drop-In League.
Sal’s Pizza Joint Players of the Week:
Shuhan Cao: 111points
Maxwell Hansen: 111points
Players’ Rating Gains
Henry Giles 62 points
Shuhan Cao 43 points
Terry Southern 40 points
Changhee Cho 31 points
Tao Feng 19 points
Eric Diao 16 points
Lehan Feng 14 points
Samir Doley 13 points
Emily Kan 12 points
Players’ Doubles Rating Gains
Maxwell Hansen 104 points
Shuhan Cao 68 points
Jae Lee 66 points
Chrys Podjursky 36 points
Lehan Feng 33 points
Tao Feng 33 points
Order of Merit - New milestones
Akshay Aneesh 22,000 points
Landon Lau 13,000 points
Shuhan Cao 9000 points
Summer League
February to April
Summer League 2025 has concluded. Final results and standings can be found here.
Autumn League
April to June
Autumn League 2025 has concluded. Final results and standings are available here.
Winter League
July to September
Winter League 2025 has concluded. Final results and standings are available here.
Spring League
October to November
Spring League 2025 is underway. Progressive results and standings are available here.
Christmas League
December to February
Christmas League (2024/25) has concluded. Final results and standings are available here.
Super 16
Played on some Saturdays from March to August
Super 16 (2025) has concluded. Final results and standings are available here.
All-Stars / Drop-In League
Played in the period between the main comps on some Tuesdays throughout the year. Progressive results and standings are available here.
Schools' Competition
The 2024 Intermediate and Secondary Schools’ Competition is underway. Progressive results and standings are here.
