DTTA’s 10th QUINCENAL Tourney
Hello Table Tennis players and friends!
We are very happy to inform you that on Saturday, May 16th, Denver Table Tennis Alliance held our 10th QUINCENAL Tourney, which was also our 2nd USATT Sanctioned Q… and it went very well!
We had a fun day of great competition in the 3 different Divisions, with more first-timers joining this QUINCENAL Tourney: Jared Peterson, Qun Lu, Daniel Garin, Ying Hao Chen and Ryan Roemmich.
DTTA congratulates in particular:
C Division-
Winner, Daniel Garin
Runner up, Camy Lau
3rd place, Mike Wood
B Division-
Winner, Qun Lu
Runner up, Tan “Bruce” Loi
3rd place, Tony Brangoccio
A Division-
Winner, Manohar Karthikeyan
Runner up, Vinay Chandra
3rd place, Basil Ibegbu
The winner in A Division received a DTTA/Butterfly shirt, a 10 pack of PepPod, and $100 dollars cash! The runner up received a DTTA/Butterfly shirt and a 10 pack of PepPod!
The winners in B and C Divisions each received a DTTA/Butterflyo shirt and a 10 pack of PepPod! The runners up in both B and C each received a Butterfly Towel and a 10 pack of PepPod!
We congratulate all of our DTTA Members who played in this 2nd USATT Sanctioned Q Tourney, as most of them will increase their USATT ratings.
All players who participated in our 10th QUINCENAL / 2nd USATT Sanctioned Q Tourney received 1 Participation Point towards qualifying for the raffle (between the 5 players with most Participation Points) at the end of the year for a 7-Day Trip to Peru!
Players who ended in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th position in each Division of this Q Tourney received 4, 3, 2 and 1 Performance Points, respectively. The winners of each Division with the most Performance Points at the end of the year will receive a great prize from Butterfly!
C Division had two groups. Group 1 was formed by Daniel Garin (1069), Michael Wood (800), Lisa You (800), Ying Chen (600) and Charles Bedford (522). In this group, the best matches involved the same 3 players, Mike, Charles, and Ying Chen. Mike vs Charles was the first match of the group and started with Charles taking the first game by a tight 9-11. But Mike made a comeback that included two more very disputed games, with scores of 12-10, 11-4 and 12-10 for Mike. Ying Chen vs Charles was another good match, where this time Charles started winning and also finished winning. However, the young Asian player gave him a good fight. The partials were 8-11, 11-7, 3-11 and 6-11 for Charles. But the best match in this RR group was Mike vs Ying Chen. Our DTTA Member easily started up with a solid 2-0, with partials of 11-4 and 11-5. But somehow our dear Mike lost focus, and Ying was able to pull off the third game after some long rallies by 9-11. The fight was going to become even harder for Mike now, as he saw a more confident player facing him after that third game. The fourth game of this match was probably the best one of the whole RR group, as players evenly exchanged points after very disputed points. Ying managed to pull off another super tight game by 11-13. Mike needed to come back to play confidently and not rush any more, and so he did from the beginning of the fifth game. He went for better placing of the ball and taking his time to go for the “closing-point” balls. Our DTTA Member established a good advantage from the start that Ying was far from turning around. The Asian player lost his “mojo” and went for a number of unforced errors that left Mike winning the fifth game comfortably, and, with it, the match by 11-6. Mike Wood keep continued to show his improvement, as he also defeated our dear Lisa “Legs” You with a solid 3-0. Unfortunately, because of that loss, Lisa didn’t make it to the next round. Daniel Garin passed the RR group in first place undefeated, followed by Mike Wood in second, who only lost to Daniel.
Group 2 of C Division was formed by Camy Lau (893), Lisa Breashears (868), Brandon Loi (646), Jared Peterson (600) and Amelia Miller (400). There were two matches that were the best in this RR group. Camy vs Jared was one of them, with Jared starting by taking the first game with a 8-11 score. However, after that Camy was “all business” and “killed” the kid in the next 3 games by 11-7, 11-1 and 11-4. Lisa vs Jared was the the other best match in this group. All games were very disputed, and both players mainly profited from their serves. The scores tell the story: 13-15, 18-16, 11-9, 9-11 and 11-9 for Lisa. All the other matches in this group were resolved in 3 straight games. Camy passed the RR group in first place undefeated, followed by Brandon in second, who only lost to Camy.
The first semifinals match was Daniel Garin vs Brandon Loi. It was relatively easy for Daniel to “control” his opponent by staying close to the table and blocking throughout the first two games, which he took by 11-6 and 11-7. By the third game, Brandon started to be more consistent and attack with more precision. Even though that leveled the game, now Daniel dared to attack, as well, and it paid off after a number of very disputed points. In the end, the third game was also for Daniel, with a score of 12-10.
The other semifinals match was Mike Wood vs Camy Lau. the first two games of this match were very intense, from which our DTTA Member managed to pull off the first one after a very tight fight and long rallies by 12-10. The same level of intensity remained in the second game, but this one went to Camy by 9-11. Unfortunately for our friend Mike, he lost focus and his capacity to react and correctly approach the ball, and from then on Camy “killed” him in the next two games by 3-11 and 2-11.
The match for 3rd and 4th place was now Brandon Loi vs Mike Wood. Mike started by taking the first game relatively easily, but then Brandon came back to take the second one. From then on the match was more even, but unfortunately for Brandon, who, without the energy for the right footwork, insisted on taking some distance from the table to apply more top spin to the ball. Mike mostly kept blocking and returning all those top spin balls by placing them well and forcing Brandon to miss, because his lack of footwork couldn’t meet the requirements of his decision to play a mid-distance game. Mike took the next two games with pretty tight scores. The partials were 6-11, 11-8, 8-11 and 9-11. Very good job, Mike! Congratulations on a well deserved 3rd place on your first Sanctioned Q!
The finals match was Daniel Garin vs Camy Lau. This match was very intense. Camy was again all business from the start and took the first game by a solid 4-11. After that things became tighter, and Daniel took the second one by 11-9. As Daniel better and better read Camy’s game, he managed to take the third game by another solid score of 11-3. Camy changed her strategy a bit and went for the attack more often in the fourth game, which paid off. Camy took it by 5-11. Unfortunately for her, Daniel started the fifth very strongly, chopping back all the under spin balls Camy was giving him and only going for the attack when he felt totally secure. The consistency he brought to the table in this fifth and last game was something that Camy just couldn’t keep up with. Daniel Garin won the fifth game by a very solid 11-3, and with it the 2nd USATT Sanctioned Q Tourney – C Division! Congratulations, Daniel! You played very well all through the Tourney! And congratulations to Camy too! You gave a good fight!
B Division had a big Round Robin and was formed by Tan Loi (1556), Qun Lu (1495), Nick Johnson (1383), Minoru Kamei (1324), Ryan Roemmich (1259), Tony Brangoccio (1203), Kai Rackley (1065) and Matt Sharkey (935). This Division had a number of great matches. To start, Nick vs Tony was such a great match! With Tony taking the first games by 8-11 and 10-12, it seemed like he was going to keep playing at top performance. But something happened, and Nick came back to take the third game by a very solid 11-6. After that, the match became, as usual between these two players, anybody’s match! After a great fight in the fourth game, Nick managed to take the fourth game, as well, by 12-10. Being 2-2 in games now, Tony returned to playing his best game and closed the match in his favor with a very disputed 9-11.
Kamei vs Ryan was another great match of “comebacks.” Kamei took the first one by 11-7, but after that Ryan, playing aggressively, took the next ones by 6-11 and a tight 11-13. Ryan was in a very good place now against his higher-rated opponent. But from the beginning of the fourth game, Kamei attacked with more consistency. Ryan was unable to defend or control the Samurai’s ball. The match turned into a great comeback from Kamei. The last partials were for the Samurai: 11-5 and 11-4.
Nick vs Kamei was another good match. In this one, Kamei was going to experience in return what he just did to Ryan. In the very disputed first two games, Kamei barely took them by 9-11 and 9-11. The Samurai couldn’t quite close it in the third game. Bringing his best game now, Nick was going to come back and pull off, in a very tight fight, the next 3 games straight! The partials of those were 11-9, 11-9 and 11-7.
The match between Tan and Tony probably had the tightest games in the whole RR group! Tony started by taking the first one with the smallest margin of 11-13. This caused Tan to be way more cautious and solid in the next games, which he took by 11-3 and 11-7. Tony was going to bring his best game again, and, as he has shown Tan in many practice matches, he already has what it takes to beat our Asian friend. Tony took the fourth by a tight 9-11. The fifth game was so tight, you could see in Tan’s face how worried he became, probably thinking “a lot of my USATT points are about to fly away!” Luckily for “Bruce,” he managed to keep the calm after a super tight 14-14 in the fifth game. The experience prevailed once again, and Tan, closer than ever to lose against Tony in a USATT Sanctioned Tournament, managed to score the next and last two points to close it by 16-14. Then he took a deep breath to approach Tony to shake his hand.
In the match of Tan vs Kamei, when Tan thought the worst was already behind, the Samurai Kamei came along. After being down 0-2 with partials of 7-11 and 11-13, and facing a very confident Samurai, Tan returned to a more patient and safe game of under spin, which is what his best game is about. As he kept returning those chopped and dead balls, and everything in between, back to Kamei, the Samurai started to experience more difficulties returning those balls, identifying how charged the spin was that he received. Too bad for Kamei, though, that he couldn’t close the match in the third or fourth game and got “killed” in the fifth. The next 3 straight games were for Tan: 11-7, 11-9 and 11-3. Tan made it again, but it’s clear now that he has some players breathing down his neck.
Nick vs Ryan was also a great match. Nick thought he easily had the match in his pocket after being up 2-0 (11-4 and 11-7). Ryan was going to prove to the Sweaty Giant that he needed to bring his very best to the table to close it, as Ryan took the next two games by 5-11 and 4-11. However, Nick did bring his very best for the last game. He made clear who had the higher rating, as he closed the match with a solid 11-2.
The match between Qun Lu and Kamei broke the undefeated rhythm Qun was having to that point. The constant blocking style of the short pips player only worked in the first game, which he took by 11-6. From then on, however, the Samurai kept attacking and looping the ball back, giving Qun more and more problems. Kamei came back and took the match in the next 3 games by 8-11, 8-11 and 3-11. The Samurai secured some good points in his pocket with this match. Congrats, Kamei!
The best match of this RR was going to be Nick vs Matt. With great, long rallies where Matt blocked most of Nick’s attacks, spectators in the Club were having a great time watching how tight the whole match was! Even in the games that seemed not to be very tight score-wise, almost every single point was a hard fight to go through for both players. After Nick took the first one by 14-12, Matt returned to take the next two games by 6-11 and 8-11. The Sweaty Giant saw his rating points going down the toilet by now, as The Lumberjack is rated almost 450 points lower! Nick played the next games as aggressively as he could. He was sweating, as usual, until that point. But when the fourth game started, the sprinklers were in full force! As an unbelievable amount of sweat was being spilled all over the table and floor, Nick literally left everything in the next games to make it happen. He made it! The next games were for the Sweaty Giant by very, very disputed game scores of 11-8 and 12-10. That was very close, Nick! And to Matt: It’s clear your time will come soon!
The last match of the RR was between the highest rated players of B Division, which included an undefeated Tan, at least up until this point: Tan Loi vs Qun Lu. With an impressive and solid start of 11-4 in that first game, our DTTA Member, Tan, looked very good. Unfortunately for him, Qun better read every chopped and dead ball from Tan in the second game. Instead of prematurely going for the attack, he built his points more patiently now, almost just passing back the ball by blocking and/or pushing with his short pips. As he returned many dead balls, too, as he did throughout the whole RR with every opponent, he just waited for Tan to miss. In a more disputed game where he was “taking notes” on how to play against Tan, Qun took that second game by a tight 9-11. From then on, sadly, everything went downhill for our DTTA Member. Qun not only figured out exactly how to return almost every single ball from his opponent by the third game, but he would also go for solid attacks now, as his confidence kept on increasing. It greatly paid off. The next games were relatively easy for Qun, as he took them by 6-11 and 5-11, and with it, the match. Although both players finished the RR with 6 wins and 1 loss, with this last match result, Qun Lu became the B Division Champion of this 2nd USATT Sanctioned Q Tourney. Congratulations, Qun! You played very well throughout the whole Tourney! And Tan, you certainly did very well, too!
A Division had two groups. Group 1, was formed by Manohar Karthikeyan (2251), Zhimin Chen “Jimmy” (1903), Tim Musgrove (1874), Carlos Pinzon (1675), Trent Casi (1594), Herbert Reissnecker (1400) and John Miller (1293). There were some good matches in this RR group. Like the one of Jimmy vs Trent, which, even though Jimmy started up easily by 11-2, very soon he saw himself having to bring his best to deal with Trent, who, overall, had a good tournament. Jimmy also took the second game after some struggle by 11-9, but Trent took the third one by a solid 3-11. The best of both players returned to the table, and experience prevailed again, with Jimmy winning the match in that fourth game by another very tight 11-9.
Jimmy vs Tim. If before against Trent Jimmy had to bring his best, for this one he had to do so and more! Tim starting by taking the first game by 6-11, and Jimmy came back with games of 11-8 and 11-7. Tim continued the hard fight and took the third game by 8-11. From the beginning of the fifth game, we knew it could be anybody’s match. Luckily for Jimmy, he managed to pull off a super tight win in the last game by 12-10.
Carlos vs Herbert. This match had comebacks from both players. Carlos took the first one by the smallest margin of 12-10. Then Herbert, in a constant fight, took the next one by 8-11. Then Carlos made an impressive comeback to win the third game by 11-1, which gave him a lot of confidence. Unfortunately for our DTTA Member, though , he started to run out of gas. Herbert returned to a better performance and took the next two games by 8-11 and 7-11, winning the match.
Trent vs Herbert. Our Swiss friend was going to have another tough fight ahead, as it was Trent’s turn to face him. Like against Carlos, Herbert started losing the first game by a tight 11-9. But then he managed to come back to take, the next two games by 9-11 and 6-11, after long rallies and disputed points. However, Trent returned to the table to play his best TT and took the fourth game solidly by 11-3. Even with the powerful performance from his opponent, the Swiss player raised his confidence again to take the fifth game by 11-7. Good job, Herbert!
Manohar passed in first place, undefeated, to the next round, followed by Jimmy in second, who only lost to Manohar.
Group 2 was formed by Basil Ibegbu (2013), Vinay Chandra (1971), Loi Pham (1838), Jason Lai (1751), Gordon Kaye (1572) and James Fu (1553). There were many great matches in this RR group! Loi vs Jason was one of these great matches, with the first games being very tight. Long rallies with top spin loops were exchanged between these two players, leaving Jason with a win in first game, barely, by 10-12. But then Loi took the second game by another tight 11-9. In yet another hard fight, Jason put himself up by 2-1 after taking the third game by a tight score of 12-10. From then on, however, consistency was almost only on the side of our Vietnamese friend. Loi played the next games with great accuracy and closed the match in his favor with 11-6 and 11-6.
Jason vs James was another tough match for Jason, for whom fighting very hard was not enough in this Q Tourney. After long and disputed games, Mr Kung Fu was able to pull off a great win, taking many ratings points from his opponent! The partials were 11-9, 9-11, 4-11, 15-13 and 10-12.
Manohar vs Loi. After taking the first game by 11-5, our Indian friend might have thought the rest of the match was going to be a walk in the park, but Loi, bringing his best game, took the next two games by 7-11 and 10-12. Manohar had to play seriously to overcome the situation. And so he did. With a solid comeback, Manohar took the next two games by 11-3 and 11-7 to win the match.
Gordon vs James. Aside from the second game, it was a very disputed match! Our friend and DTTA Member, Gordon “Charming” Kaye, couldn’t keep up his best game and went through some unforced errors in decisive moments of the match. In all fairness, Mr Kung Fu had a great tournament and went home with a good amount of points taken from higher rated players, like Gordon and Jason Lai. Even though he lost, Gordon did take Loi Pham to 5 games! The partials between Gordon and James were 14-12, 4-11, 9-11 and 10-12.
Loi vs James. This one started with an impressive 1-11 for James and then turned into a super disputed match, as Loi “woke up” and took the second game by a long 16-14. James Kung Fu returned to a solid performance similar to the first game and took the third one by 3-11. Loi had to “wake up” again and remain “awake” this time if he didn’t want to see his points dramatically go down the toilet. The Vietnamese player pulled off a pretty solid 11-6 in the fourth game, but by the fifth he had to bring his very best when things were 11-11. The higher rated player prevailed and closed the match with a super tight 13-11.
The last match of the RR group was Basil vs Vinay, which was a very tight match throughout! The highest rated players of the group were going through long rallies with different defending styles. Basil took the first one by 11-9, but the next one was for Vinay by 6-11. Basil came back to take the third game by another small margin of 12-10. But the next two games, and match, were for Vinay with super tight scores: 14-16 and 9-11. Vinay not only had a great RR, passing in first place as the second seed, but an all-around good tournament, as he took home some good points. He passed in first place to the next round, followed by Basil, who only lost to Vinay.
One of the semifinals matches was Manohar vs Basil. With a great performance, Basil established a 0-2 after the very, very hard rallies these two players endured. The African player took those first two games by the very tight scores 10-12 and 8-11. Manohar had to bring his very best to the table to overcome the situation. It was a great match for the Indian player, as he came back playing his best against a very solid Basil. The next 3 straight games were for Manohar: 11-9, 12-10 and 11-8.
The other semifinals match was Vinay vs Jimmy. From the start, Jimmy showed some problems to fight against his defensive opponent and his long pips action. After the first game, where things were tight for a little while, the Indian player took it by 11-9. After that, things didn’t seem to get any better for Jimmy, as the constant change of pace, rhythm and spin applied by Vinay was just a bit too much to handle for the Chinese player. The next two games were also for Vinay by 11-7 and 11-8.
The match for 3rd and 4th place was Basil vs Jimmy. The first two games were so vibrant and disputed, with Jimmy wanting to redeem himself from losing to the prior defensive player, so he played really hard and decisively. After looping and smashing the heck out of many balls, the first game went to Jimmy by a tight 10-12. But he couldn’t quite close the second one, and Basil took it by the same difference: 12-10. From then on, however, we saw the best of Jimmy’s game fading away. Things became very hard to handle again, as Basil returned “everything” Jimmy attacked back to him! Basil took the next two games, the match, and a well deserved 3rd place by solid 11-4 and 11-7 scores. Congratulations, Basil! You played very well all through the Q Tourney, as usual!
The finals match was Manohar vs Vinay. With some long rallies where both players exchanged pushes from short to long pips, and vice versa, Manohar ended up taking the first game by 11-8. His compatriot, however, was not going to let this finals match go so easily, and the second game went to Vinay by 7-11. The match remained very disputed and with longs defensive and controlled rallies, but Manohar managed to pull out the next two straight games to close the match in his favor by 11-8 and a tighter 11-9. Congratulations, Manohar! Every time you come to DTTA’s Q Tourneys, you take it home… and this was no exception! Congrats to Vinay, too, who took some good points home after a great performance in this 2nd USATT Sanctioned Q Tourney!
Thank you to all players who participated in our 2nd USATT Sanctioned Q Tourney / 10th QUINCENAL Tourney!
Denver Table Tennis Alliance also wants to thank our sponsors:
Butterfly, the best Table Tennis brand in the world. All tournaments at DTTA are played on Butterfly Centrefold 25 ITTF Official tables, and we only use Butterfly 3 Star Premium balls.
Ace.Eat.Serve, a great Asian fusion restaurant in Denver with Ping-Pong fun at the corner of Pennsylvania St and 17th Ave in Uptown Denver.
PepPod, drop, dissolve and drink! The new alternative for energy and nutrition while playing and exercising.
B&B Tradiciones, Travel and Accommodation, the best service for travel and accommodation when visiting Peru. Contact:bbtradiciones@hotmail.com.
DTTA invites you all to participate in our (non-sanctioned) 11th QUINCENAL Tourney coming up on Saturday, May 30th!
…we hope to see you all there!
Angelo Gandullia
Denver Table Tennis Alliance
www.denverttalliance.com
