2018 Butterfly Canadian Championships: Men’s and Women’s Finals
(by Steve Hopkins)

The 2018 Canadian Championships has brought Canada’s elite to Burnaby British Columbia in the Vancouver metropolitan area. The players competed in 15 events, 10 age events for juniors and U-21 plus Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles and Mixed Doubles.  The action began on Tuesday, July 3 and concluded on Sunday, July 8.

The top seed in the Women’s Singles event was Patrina Hui.  Patrina advanced to the final with a 3-1 win over Yu-Hsan Chen and a tight win over 3-2 Alicia Cote.  In the other half of the draw, second seed Leisy Jimenez Medina fell to May Tong 3-2.  May then defeated Cherry Zheng 3-0 to advance to the final.  The final was a nail-biter with May Tong pulling the upset victory to secure the Canadian Championship (3-2: -9, 9, 9, -9, 9)

The Men’s Finals featured top seeded Jeremy Hazin, who had already won the juniors event.  Hazin advanced to the finals with a 3-0 win over Lester Lee and a 3-0 win over Edward Ly and a 3-1 win over Terence Yeung.  The other half of the draw did not go exactly by seed as the second seeded Bryan Ho fell in the quarterfinals to Tommy Xu and the third seeded Antoine Bernadet fell to Mohammed Faris Qatan in the quarterfinals.  The Tommy Xu / Bryan Ho match was an especially hard-ought 3-2 win for Tommy, as all three of his games were won in deuce and two games were won with scores over 13-11 (3-2: -8, 11, 10, -9, 11).  Ultimately Mohammed Faris Qatan ended Tommy Xu’s run and advanced to the final (3-0: 6, 7, 6).

The final was won by Hazin.  He built early leads in the first two games to take a commanding lead in the best of 5 format.  Qatan then won the third game 11-8.  But Hazin secured the match with a win in game 4.  Jeremy Hazin over Mohammed Faris Qatan for the Canadian Championship (3-1: 5, 6, -8, 8).