(by Steve Hopkins)
After two thousand six hundred and eighty six singles matches, a champion was crowned. The winning team (Aria TT) had a combined rating of their three players of 8185. The top player (Kou Lei) entered with a 2818 rating. Kou Lei, and his teammates Eugene Wang and Angel Naranjo made it through the tournament unscathed. Collectively, they were 29-0 in matches – brilliant from start to finish.
While the top teams were seeded directly into Day 2 of this three day tournament, many other teams played extra matches on the first day. So while Aria TT had the best winning percentage (*100%), there are some other numbers of interest as well. Team Corozal 1, the Division II winners, finished 11-1, with a 92% winning record. Corozal’s Team Captain Sebastian Fuentes was 15-2, Chrisnomar Aviles bettered that mark with an 18-1 record, Rayniel Robles Morel was 17-3, and Liara Rivera was 8-3.
Team VATT 2 (Vega Alta Table Tennis) also had 11 wins on their way to the Division 4 title with Abel Lopez, Christian Marrero, Diego Jimenez, and Omar Cruz all playing well throughout. CIDRA 1 won Division 3 with a 10-3 record with their team of Fabian Rivera, David Centeno, Juan Mejias, and Pedro Diaz. Los Islenos (Alejandro Rodriguez, David Vila, Nelson Garcia Rivera, and Valentina Rivera Garcia) won Division 5.
Individually, the most wins went to Sebastian Pedraza of Guaynabo who went 23-3 for the tournament. Daniel Hernandez of Morvis was 22-1. The best winning percentage goes to 9 undefeated players – David Vila who went 21-0, Eugene Wang and Angel Naranjo who each went 10-0, Kou Lei who went 9-0, Gabriel Perez who was 6-0, Qingliang Wang who was 5-0, Juan Jesus Gomez Carbajal who was 4-0, and Tina Ren and Anton Roure who were both 1-0. An interesting “extra” stat is the most points won – Jeriel Torres Rivera of Cayey actually won 1031 points – about 8 % more points won than any other player in the tournament.
The tournament had 27 players over the age of 40 and 21 players aged 12 or younger. The top division (Div 1) had three players over 40. Two of those players were on Team USATT (I won’t name them here) and the other was on Bowmar 1. Of those three, only one was Over 50 (I’ll will name him here – Steve Hopkins). The youngest player in Division 1 was 13-year-old Sergio Perez (three others were 14).
Eleven staff from the US and thirteen from Puerto Rico combined for tournament setup and operations. Special thanks should go out to Larry Thoman, Edmund Suen, Josh Brantley, Veronica Navarro, Ezequiel Mondragon, Liliana Contreras, Howard Philips, Xizi Sun, Estefania Ramirios, Steve Hopkins, Bowie Martin Jr., Alex de Jesus, Jonathan Villar, Orlando Torres, Jose Pagan, Christian Aviles, Justinell Perez, John Marrero, Edgar de Jesus, Elga Santos, Edgar Ivan Rios, Papa de Yezue, Carlos Burgos, and Gabriel Rodriguez Nieves.
What do staff do at a tournament this large? – unload trucks, roll out flooring, set up 100 tables, put together and set up a thousand barriers, measure perfect rows, balance tables and nets, set and reset tables so every line is picture perfect…. And then after the players arrive, most of the team were manning registration tables, setting up brackets, recording results, and ensuring that the tournament moved forward. Many, many more started preparing for this event months ahead. But for the tournament setup team, many arrived on Monday to do the heavy lifting. And most started their day before the venue doors opened and were still working long after the players had left for the day to enjoy the local restaurants and sights.
One more number to remember – we are currently just under 12 months from the 2024 Butterfly Puerto Rico Open Teams.
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