Meet The Coaches: Simon Gerada

Once ranked as Australia’s top player, Simon Gerada had an exceptional career as an athlete. He competed at the Sydney Olympics at just 19,  he played professionally in Europe from the age of 16, but when retiring from international competition in his late 20s, he felt there was still something missing.

“Whilst I don’t think I fulfilled my potential as a player, the journey was a big part of why I found my way to coaching,” he said. 

“I look back on my years as an athlete and having the appropriate support network watching over me was always lacking, for example helping to navigate your way through the world of table tennis and balancing life in general.”

“As a coach now, it’s all about providing that kid – me – all these kids, the opportunity that we didn’t have.

“It’s my goal as a coach, my philosophy as a coach to give the next generation the environment to potentially flourish both in and outside of table tennis.” 

From Gerada’s experience, finding that balance is easier said than done.

Together with William Henzell, Gerada made history becoming one of the first ever Australian players to compete in overseas leagues. Gerada first travelled to China, and by 23, he found himself playing in the highest division in Sweden.

“The easiest way to say it is I was always going to be involved in sport. By the age of 12, I was turning up to school without a pen, without a paper, without a text book. I was turning up with a football, kicking it up, all the way walking to school, or spinning a cricket ball,” he said.

“Sport was always where I wanted to be. And then obviously table tennis caught my attention. The competitiveness, the brains behind it, the sports psych that’s required. Physically and mentally, it was always so challenging, and ultimately I learnt all lessons of life within the game of table tennis.

While being paid to play table tennis all over the world was a dream come true for Gerada, little did he know, he had started to sow the seeds for the next stage of his career. 

“Every time I’d come back home after a season, I’d spend three months living in Australia. And in those three months, I needed to make a living for myself, so that’s when I got my first taste of coaching,” he said.

“For example one of my first ever clients was a 90-year-old veteran. You learn so much when you’re coaching and I learnt an important lesson from him – communication. He couldn’t hear well and it was difficult to go to the other side of the table every time you wanted to talk, so you learn to make your instruction count.”

Although that was another important life lesson learnt through the sport, it still hadn’t occurred to him that these were the humble beginnings of the biggest impact he could make on the sport.

“I finished playing table tennis professionally at 27 or 28, and then at 29, I’d started working in marketing for a couple of years through a friend who gave me my start outside the world of table tennis. After a couple of years I thought, there had to be something more I could do. So I went into professional coaching at 29,” he said.

As highly regarded as he was as an athlete, he is even more highly regarded as a coach. Gerada’s skills on the table translated well as a coach and today he has helped produce some of Australia’s top talent, including the likes of Melissa Tapper, Finn Luu and Xavier Dixon, who ended up moving to Melbourne to further his table tennis.

“Another example was where each weekend, I’d fly down to Tasmania to work with a group of six or seven players, where I worked with Xavier or for example Finn Luu, who’s first ever table tennis ball hit was with my dad.”

It wasn’t long before TTA Head Coach (Able-Bodied) John Murphy took notice, knowing that if they could work together, Australia’s future would be brighter than ever.

Today, Gerada says it’s a career highlight to be able to help pave the way for Australia’s future stars of the sport, and most of all

“Making a meaningful difference is everything to me, and we’re on the right path with the programs we’re running at TTA,” he said.

“It’s not about the winning. It’s about the learning. Once you’ve nailed that, the winning will look after itself.”