Sport Klub Windhoek (SKW) Namibia's biggest Sports Club

SKW's Fleidl is Senior Open table tennis champ - 07/23/2012

Heiko Fliedl won the Namibian Senior Open Table Tennis title for the first time in his career when he beat Reinhardt Stanley 4-2 in the final on Saturday.

The Namibia Table Tennis Association (NTTA) hosted the annual Namibian National Senior Open Championships on Saturday, 14 July 2012 at the SKW Sports Club in Windhoek.

The tournament was administrated by the NTTA and was another huge success. It was also the first tournament that made use of tables and other equipment recently received as part of a donation from the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). This equipment was used earlier this year at the ITTF World Team Championships at which Namibia also participated. The NTTA would like to sincerely thank the ITTF, Coastal Couriers, Inchcape Shipping and Namship for their involvement and generous support in securing delivery of the equipment in time for the tournament.

The tournament started at 09:00 in the morning and concluded at 17:00 in the afternoon. Players came from Windhoek, Swakopmund and Rehoboth. This traditional tournament had a knockout format for the doubles and singles section. Main draw singles matches were played best out of 7 sets and the doubles were played best out of 5 sets. A consolation round for all the players that were eliminated in the first round was played. The Namibian Open Championships are a Category A tournament, making it the tournament with the highest weighting with regards to ranking points earned by players in the season.

Heiko Fleidl, who was ranked third in the country before the tournament, made the best possible use of this opportunity. Not only did he dispatch the number one ranked player Bastian Hüster in the Semi-Finals in a dramatic 4-0 upset, but also overcame the second ranked player Reinhardt Stanley in the final match that would decide who would be the 2012 Namibian Champion.

Stanley had earned his place in the Championship Final by narrowly overcoming a very determined debut by Michael Xu in a nail-biting second semiinal that went the distance with Stanley taking the seventh set to win 4-3.

The Singles Final also went down to the wire, with each player securing two sets each of the first four sets.

Fleidl, however, who had been in top form the entire tournament, maintained the upper hand from that point on with consistent and intelligent play, which allowed him to secure the next two sets as well, clinching the title of Namibian champion for the first time in his table tennis career with a 4-2 victory over Stanley, and as a result also propelling him past Stanley and Hüster to the top of the National Ranking.

Ten teams contested the doubles competition this year, showing a marked and welcome increase in participation over last year. Third place was secured by Reinhardt Stanley and Theo Beukes, who beat Roger Beukes and Fabian Tait combination in the play-off.

The Doubles Championship Final was again a hotly contested match with newcomers Xu and Yunke taking on the 2011 Windhoek Championship winners Hüster and Fleidl.

Once more, the match had to be decided in the final set with neither team giving anything away in the first four sets. Hüster and Fleidl, however, were not able to secure the all important final two points to close out the final set, meaning that Xu and Yunke secured the title of 2012 Namibian Doubles Champions on their debut appearance at the tournament with a 3-2 victory.

The Consolation Round Final saw Fabian Tait beating Wayne Green 2-1.

The latest Senior NTTA National Rankings can be viewed on the official NTTA Facebook page: Namibia Table Tennis Association (NTTA).