(by Steve Hopkins)
The Cary Cup continues its long history of bringing together players not just from up and down the East Coast. The event began in Cary NC in 2001, but expanded in 2014 when it moved to the Triangle Table Tennis facility in neighboring Morrisville. This rendition of the event included over 79 players and featured 6 smaller events and the Giant Round Robin “main” event.
The Thursday and Friday events included round robins by rating – serving local players as well as those who wanted to compete in the Triangle Club to acclimate with playing conditions before the weekend. On Thursday, there was an 1150 event, a 1500 event, a 1900 event, and an Open. And on Friday, there was an 1800 event, and an Over 1800 event.
EARLY EVENTS: The headline on Thursday was Rachid El Boubou defeating Kazeem Makanjuola to win the Thursday Open RR. Edward Zhang won the U1150 event, Edward Zhang won the U1500 event, and Simon Enskyy won the U1900 event. On Friday, the Over 1800 Event was won by Kazeem Makanjuola.
MAIN EVENT (Saturday/Sunday): The Giant Round Robin is the signature event of the Cary Cup. Players are arranged by rating and ultimately must win their way into a Division. And after being placed in a Division, only the top finishers move out of that second round robin and into the single elimination round. In the Preliminaries, there were no upsets among the top seeds.
Division A had a few surprises as Changbo Lu was third by rating in Group 1, but topped both players above him (Adeyinka and El Boubou). In Group 2, Rachel Wang started in third position and finished in second, as Kazeem Makanjuola entered in first position and escaped without losing a game. In the single elimination second stage, Adeyinka and Makanjuola reached the Final, and Makanjuola won in a walk-over. The final match was a bit of a let-down, but it capped off a great weekend of table tennis.
Cary Cup Giant Round Robin Finals:
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