Australia will send a six-strong Table Tennis squad to Tokyo, with three men and three women selected to the team.
Overview
Six-time Olympian Jian Fang Lay and Olympic debutante Michelle Bromley will compete in the Women’s Singles, while Chris Yan and David Powell will take the court in the Men’s Singles, as they did in Rio 2016.
On July 25, Melissa Tapper and Heming Hu will be the first Australian table tennis players to compete in the Mixed Doubles event, which makes its debut at the Olympics.
Australia has been represented at every Olympic Games since the sport began in 1988, but has never won a table tennis medal in Olympic competition.
Table Tennis Team
Ones to Watch
After being the last athlete selected to the team as a replacement for Stephanie Sang, Jian Fang Lay will be hoping to improve on her result in Rio, when she was the only Australian to score a win before conceding defeat in the third round against the Singaporean Yu My.
The Format
In Singles, the player who wins four games out of seven is considered the match winner. Each game is contested to 11 points, with the winner needing a margin of at least two points to close the game.
In the Team event, teams need to win three out of five matches (four Singles, one Double) to adjudicate the contest. All Singles matches and the Doubles match in a contest are played to the best of five games, with no other differences from Singles events.
All events follow a knockout format.
China has won 28 of 32 table tennis gold medals awarded at the Olympics since the sport entered the Olympic program in 1988. Fierce challenges will come mostly from Japanese competitors and the Taiwanese Mixed Doubles team, but the Chinese will no doubt be targeting an historic fourth clean sweep in Tokyo.
What’s The Story?
Heming Hu and Melissa Tapper will be the first Australian table tennis players to compete in the Mixed Doubles event, which makes its debut on the table tennis program in Tokyo.
At 33 years of age, Michelle Bromley will finally realise her lifelong dream to compete at the Olympics after narrowly missing out on selection multiple times. Growing up in the small NSW country town of Gulgong from a table tennis family (her parents met up at a table tennis club), Michelle was introduced to the sport by her mum, and later coached by her dad during the development years. Unfortunately Michelle’s father, her personal hero, won’t be able to see her reaching the pinnacle of her sporting career, passing away from cancer in 2012.
The Facts
In Tokyo Jian Fang Lay will join Equestrian’s Mary Hanna as Australia’s first women to compete for Australia at six Olympic Games. The 48-year-old table tennis player debuted at Sydney 2000 and has not missed an edition of the Games since.
Melissa Tapper was the first Australian to qualify for the same edition of the Olympic and Paralympic Games when she was selected in Rio 2016. She has now achieved that feature twice.
Competition starts on the 24 July with the Men’s and Women’s Singles preliminary rounds. Mixed Doubles will make their debut the next day, but will assign the first table tennis medal on Jul 26. After the Singles finals (29-30 July), the Team event will close off the program (Aug 1-6).
The Olympic tournament will be played at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, one of the legacy venues of the 1964 Olympic Games. Back then the venue hosted gymnastics events and water polo.
Did you Know?
- With COVID-19 regulations put in place for table tennis competitions at the Games, it will be strictly prohibited to touch the table with hands or towels, or blow the ball. Adapting to the new restrictions is going to prove quite challenging for some of the players.
- With more than 40 million players worldwide, table tennis has the largest player-base of any sport.
- Hend Zaza of Syria is set to be the youngest athlete to compete in Tokyo. The 12-year-old is the first Syrian table tennis player to ever qualify for the Olympics.
- In an elite game of table tennis, the ball can travel at speeds of over 40km/hr.
Table Tennis Snapshot
