I haven’t been looking forward to writing this blog entry but here we go. I got back from Europe last Friday. I had almost 4 weeks of (much needed) holidays in Europe after finishing playing at the Olympics. My fiancée and I travelled through France, Italy and Greece and it was just fantastic. I knew I would need to get as far away from the Olympics and from table tennis after I had finished playing and the holiday was just what I needed.

We booked the holiday a whole year ago, before I knew if I had even qualified for London, so I was disappointed to see that the Australian Championships had been scheduled for just two weeks after the end of the Olympics. That’s a very tough ask for the players who have just represented Australia at the Olympics (presumably those who you would expect to be doing well at the Australian Championships) to come out two weeks later and perform well. The entire calendar should not be dictated by the needs of a few players but I think under the circumstances the timing was most unfortunate.

I arrived at Melbourne Airport at 3am on the Friday morning, rushed home to bed and tried to get a few hours sleep before I started my matches at 2pm the same day. I was in no shape to play and as expected, paid the price for doing so. I bent forwards to put my trackpants on half way through the afternoon and felt the familiar sensation of a disc in my lower back bulging. If I’d kept going another few centimetres I would have been lying flat for the next few days but I caught it just in time and was just left impaired. I couldn’t bend forwards and I couldn’t rotate.

But the show went on and seeing as I didn’t have anything crucial coming up (I would have pulled out if it had been a few weeks before London) I kept on going. Besides, the Australian Championships is very important to me. I remember very well the sensation of becoming Australian Champion for the first time in 2001. I’d won 9 in total and the past 7 in a row and I wanted to do anything I could to get to 10 titles, which has been a goal of mine for many years.

I had a scare in the quarter-final against young Heming Hu, trailing 2-1 and a down in the 4th set. I was quite philosophical about what was going on and just tried to do my best under the circumstances. I accepted that I would probably lose and I was ready for it. I scraped through 4-2 against Heming and the next day faced Chris Xan from Sydney who emigrated from China a few years ago.

I have struggled against Chris in the past. In fact I think I have been down 2 sets to 0 in each of the 4 times I’ve played him in the past, but have somehow managed to win each time. To my surprise I won the 1st set 11-0(!) before losing the next set. The match was won in the 4th set where I came back from 9-3 down to win 13-11 and take a 3-1 lead.

In the final I played against my 2012 Olympic team-mate Justin Han, who also emigrated from China a few years ago. I had no expectations – I knew Justin had put in a lot of hard work for London and was in good form. I was restricted in what I could do – for example I couldn’t really bend forward to push with my forehand, so I served just short topspin tomahawk serves to stop him from pushing short. In fact it can be very difficult to play against someone who is clearly injured. It is easy to get caught up in thinking ‘Should I play safe? Should I play hold back? Should I go for my shots?’ I was basically fully functional on my backhand side when the ball was in reach and I was going for my shots. I have had similar experiences against injured players in the past and know it can be difficult.

Justin had chances to win the match; he led 3-2 in sets and 10-10 in the 6th set. In the 7th set I got a jump on him, running away to win the set 11-4 and the match. I was very happy to have won but there was certainly a part of me that did not think I should have been winning in those circumstances.

I started back at full-time work last Monday and am slowly adjusting back to having no time, struggling to find time to practice and being tired.