I’m staying near Stuttgart airport tonight before jetting off early tomorrow morning to meet up with the rest of the Australian table tennis team in England. We will spend 4 days in Preston, near Manchester, training with the English and US teams as well as playing a test match against England in front of a sell-out crowd.

Brand new training hall in Ochsenhausen

I’m pleased with my preparations over the past 10 days. It all worked out better than I’d hoped with such good training in Vienna last week and strong competition in Germany this week. I got to practice with guys in the top 100 in the world and then play 8 matches against top 100 or just below standard players this week – can’t complain about that!!

Very good of Dmitry Mazunov to give me a hit!

Ochsenhausen, one of Germany’s top clubs, took good care of me during my stay during the Challenger event and today as well. I asked if there was any training available today and they organised for me to practice with former top international player Dmitry Mazunov who has recently joined the coaching team at the club. I remember seeing Mzunov and Smirnov fall agonisingly short of winning a medal in the doubles at the 2004 Olympics. He has been recovering from a back injury recently but was good enough to block for me and then feed me multiball. The session went for about 2 hours which was just right after 3 days of tough competition before.

I felt great during the session. I think I’ve played enough recently to get myself into good shape and form, without having trained too much so that I am fatigued and struggling to put the pieces together. The matches at the Challenger Series event gave me a good idea of where my game is at and what needs fine tuning. It is too late to make major changes, so I am talking about specific service / return of service / first topspin tactics and placements. I’ve got about a week to get it perfect!