(by Steve Hopkins)
When action began on July 3rd in San Jose for this rendition of the US Nationals, the event featured not just the premiere Hsing Family Foundation Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles events that produce our true National Champion singles titles, but a combined 116 events covering a wide range of age events, rating events, classic events, para events, and a Parkinsons event.
At the top of the singles events was Kanak Jha who defeated Nikhil Kumar in a battle of two of the US Team’s most successful. Jha’s win was his seventh – the most wins of the US National Championship tournament since it became a separate event. Jha is only 26, so there could be many more years competing for titles in the largest American events. On the Women’s side, Sally Moyland topped Amy Wang, in just one of many titles she accumulated in San Jose.
Butterfly-sponsored players had great results at the Nationals overall – 20 first places, including both Men’s and Women’s Singles. Sally Moyland led the way with seven titles: Women’s Singles, U21 Women’s Singles, U19 Girls Singles, Women’s Doubles (with Irene Yeoh), Mixed Doubles (with Jishan Liang), U19 Girls Doubles (with Lilian Ma), and U19 Mixed Doubles (with Daniel Tran). Irene Yeoh had six titles of her own: U17 Girls, U15 Girls, Women’s Doubles, U17 Mixed Doubles (with Kef Noorani), U15 Girls Doubles (with Abigail Yu), and U15 Mixed Doubles (with Lucas Wu). Chirag Pradhan landed five titles: U15 and U13 Boys Singles, U15 Boys Doubles (with Yasin Musthafa), U13 Boys Doubles (with Evan Dong), and U13 Mixed Doubles (with Anya Shanbhag). Daniel Tran had three wins: U19 Boys Singles, Men’s Doubles (with Nandan Naresh), and U19 Mixed Doubles. Kef Noorani also had multiple titles, winning both U17 Mixed Doubles and winning the Family Generational Doubles with Kash Noorani.
Across all events, there were additional great performances of note. Lily Yip managed to win 8 events including Women’s O50, Women’s O60, and six doubles titles (two with Patty Martinez-Kahn, one with Jim Butler, one with Martin Gohr, and one with Hui Yuan Liu). Jimmy Butler won five events including a pair of singles titles in Men’s O40 and Men’s O50 but also pairing twice with Derek May to win Doubles events and with Lily Yip for a Mixed Doubles title.
America’s best converged on San Jose to compete over the Fourth of July week, delivering a masterclass in table tennis athleticism. While the holiday brought its own traditional celebrations, the highlights were not limited to the skies above San Jose – the venue also contained display after display of its own type of fireworks.
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