The championships were held last month in Moreton Bay, Queensland at the South Pine Indoor Sports Centre.
James represented the Victorian State Team at the week-long event, playing team formats, doubles and singles - all of which she got through while struggling with a virus, which later developed into pneumonia.
James managed to achieve a gold medal in mixed doubles, with her partner Craig Campbell from Western Australia, and silver in the women’s doubles with Guiqin Gao from Victoria.
James is ranked in the top 10 in Australia in her age group.
“I had the virus going into the tournament and had to get it checked out while up there. I didn’t want to let the team down.
“I did withdraw from a singles' event in the evening, as I was unlikely to progress from it, and it just wasn’t worth it.
“But I did not want to let my partners down in the doubles, so I did survive. It was a hard week.
“Not to mention the competition was tough, and the stadium extremely hot with no air conditioning.
“Also, a couple of players have come up into my age group, which has added another level of complexity to the competition.”
James said her doubles partners and team performed well with a very high standard of play.
“It was very close that women's doubles final, silver medal game.
“I hadn’t met all my partners before. I entered with two mixed partners.
“The first we got knocked out, and the other I’ve known him since I was a child. He’s from Geelong and I played juniors with him and h’s a very good player now in Western Australia.
“Both the New South Wales and Victorian teams performed extremely well, with several gold, silver and bronze results in the teams events, and many great achievements in the individual events as well.
“All up, there were 400 entries, with quite a few of the competitors at the championships also playing in the open competition.”
Locally, James said the table tennis momentum for the region continues with Deniliquin Table Tennis Club holding an interclub competition against Echuca Table Tennis Association this Sunday, at the Deniliquin Sports Stadium from 10am to 1pm.
All members of the community are welcome to attend and watch.
“Deniliquin is affiliated with Victoria, as Sydney is too far away,” James explained.
“We’ll play Echuca hopefully in A-grade, B-grade and C-grade, and maybe we will take it in turns hosting each year.
“Both clubs run pennants and have not got a lot of time throughout the year to do this sort of thing, so it should be special.
“One of the girls that plays in Echuca, Div Mallya, was at nationals and is a very good player.”
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