June 4, 2018

(By Tony Murnahan)
27th Butterfly Cape Fear Open

Division A Results:

1st place – Stephanie Sun

2nd place – Tim Connelly

3rd place – Richard Perez

Division B Results:

1st place – Tony Murnahan

2nd place – John Pahl

3rd place – Fred VanNynatten

The 27th Butterfly Cape Fear Open was a special one because 24 players from within a 4 hour radius gathered to compete for rating points while also bidding farewell to two local NC players, Richard Perez and Ryan Cook who will be moving to Florida and Georgia respectively. The tournament would prove to be a day of several surprise upsets as well as Richard Perez’s best tournament performance to date. The players arrived as opponents but left as family.

The preliminary round resulted in several upsets. Ryan Cook (1316) defeated Sam Sundar (1592), Phani Chitti (1432) defeated Yi Huang (1499), John Yang (1444) defeated John Pahl (1495), and Almond Reid (1296) defeated Tony Murnahan (1622). This meant that making it to the finals of either division would require lots of work.

Division A was very entertaining to watch. In group 1, Stephanie Sun performed the way you would expect the number one seed to. She went 5-0 without dropping a game. Allan Anzagira (1523) had two huge upsets beating Laurence Nadeau (1739) and Brandon Moody (1799). Maksim Kovalev (1555) of Triangle Table Tennis also upset Brandon Moody and with only two losses advanced to the next round. In group 2, Tim Connelly blocked his way through his opponents dropping only one game to Elias Gomez of Charlotte. Richard Perez played up to his potential relentlessly using his spinny loops to pull off the biggest upset of the tournament against Elias Gomez (1851). Perez lost only to Tim Connelly who comfortably blocked Perez’s loop to uncomfortable places.

In the semi-finals, Perez (1497) took a dominant 2-0 lead against Stephanie Sun (2204). Perez had a 6-3 lead in the 3rd game but ultimately lost to Stephanie’s experience and quickness after hanging on until 7-7 in the 5th while Connelly defeated Maksim Kovalev 3-0. In the final, Stephanie Sun displayed why she is 2204 and defeated Tim Connelly in straight games with Tim not scoring more than 6 in each game.

In the Division B Final, Tony Murnahan defeated John Paul of Charlotte TTC. Fred VanNynatten of Wilmington TTC defeated Joe Linkous of Richmond, VA in the playoff for 3rd and 4th place.

For detailed results visit https://omnipong.com/T-tourney.asp?t=103&r=998