(By Bruce Liu)
PongPlanet 5th Anniversary Party and Tournament
According to Bloomberg, 8 out of 10 new small businesses fail in the first 18 months. Not PongPlanet, they just celebrated their 5th Anniversary on Sunday, September the 10th. Things don’t always go peachy. However, the owner, James Guo, with his persistence and can-do attitude, makes PongPlanet a paradise for table tennis lovers in the Peninsula area.

In addition to delicious foods and beverages, there was a traditional unsanctioned tournament. Last year the tournament drew about 40 players. This year, over 60 from many clubs in bay area came to play. Lots of old friends from the legendary Palo Alto Table Tennis Club era showed up for the celebration as well.

Here is the result:

– Gold, NIU Jiang, full-time coach at PongPlanet
– Silver, Bruce Hu, full-time coach at PongPlanet
– Bronze, WANG Ying and George SIU
– Quarterfinalists, Emilie YIN, Henry KWONG, Nathan LEE, and James WAN

PongPlanet’s new coach Jiang Niu defeated George Siu, the defending Champion, in the semifinals. He also defeated Emilie Yin, Silver Medalist last year, in the quarterfinals as well as Howard Shi, Bronze medalist last year, in the 8’s. Quite an entrance for his first tournament at PongPlanet.

Congratulations to PongPlanet and James Guo. We need more table tennis club like PongPlanet in bay area. Looking forward for more anniversaries for the years to come.

More about James Guo and the history of PongPlanet in the 4th Anniversary Celebration article:
https://goo.gl/9Yz4aU

PongPlanet website:
http://www.pong-planet.com

(100+ photos from the event: https://goo.gl/eWVNFM)