This year’s delayed State Triples Championships were played under clear skies and some very welcome sunshine after a rather wet and cold week.
A highlight of the day was the re-emergence of the Women’s Championship, which had not been held for 18 years (due to insufficient numbers). It was a small field of teams, but this meant they could play a complete round robin – no ‘luck of the draw’ involved – with the top two then facing off in the final.
Under this format, no more than one team could go undefeated through the qualifiers. The team that did, namely Deb Rodda, Anna O’Connor & Haejung Jang, also won the final and were crowned as the new champions. This was a first for Haejung, obviously, as she was not here 18 years ago. For Deb and Anna, however, it was simply a case of extending their reign as champions into its twentieth year – they were both in the winning team on the last two occasions this event was held, in 2007 and 2008! In the interim, Deb has had a win in the Open Triples (2020) while she and Haejung were also finalists in last year’s Open.
The runners-up trophies went to Rada Pierre, Tina Stockley & Deb Coleman. Interestingly, their history is somewhat similar to that of the winning team. Rada and Tina have also stood together on the winner’s podium more than once in this event, most recently in 2006. Tina has also had a win in the Open Triples (2010).
Similarly, in the Open, there was only one team undefeated through the qualifiers, and they stayed that way through the knockout rounds. Nathan James, Ha Nguyen and Van Nguyen had a narrow escape in the semi-final, but got through that and prevailed in the final against Ray Drummond, Craig Stewart & Dominique Pierre. That might all sound a bit predictable, but there were certainly a few surprises along the way. Most unusual was the fact that three of the four quarter-finals featured 13-0 scorelines. I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before.
Thanks to Brett Williams and Roland Peik for taking on the umpiring duties and to the Eastern Suburbs club for hosting the event.
Download the full report (PDF): Scores-2025-26-State-Triples.pdf