2015 Millcreek Open
Erie, PA
Oct. 17-18, 2015
By Sam Steiner – Erie Table Tennis Club

Coming into this tournament, defending Open winner Samson Dubina acknowledged that he might not be able to play his best owing to the recent birth of his 4^th child and the resultant impact on his training and mental state not to mention sleep.  Nevertheless Samson came out on top after facing numerous challenges from the other semi-finalists, and especially from Alex Averin who made a strong 2-4 effort in the quarterfinals.  Positions 2-4 in Open were tied on matches and games requiring a tie-break on points.  Keith Pech placed 2^nd, Alex Csibi from Toronto 3^rd, and Buffalo’s Yong Ren 4^th, all by the slimmest of margins.  This provided the spectators with excellent drama and quality play throughout the round robin semifinals.

Other players of note were newcomers Kevin Turner of Syracuse and Tomonori Teraoka of Pittsburgh, both vastly under-rated coming into the tournament rated 1790 and 1600 respectively.  Kevin and Tomo played in the finals of U1800 with Tomo coming out on top 3-1, and Tomo making the finals of U2000 where Ken Roskos avenged an earlier loss with a 3-1 win.

Thanks to the hard work of the tournament staff, the tournament ran like clockwork with every event starting on time and finishing at a reasonable hour.  Special thanks to Butterfly Online for sponsoring the balls, which seemed to survive their beating better than in the past.  It may be that the manufacturers have tuned up the plastic formulation to improve ball performance.

RESULTS

U2400  Semi’s: Yong Ren d. Roger Liu 3-1; Alex Csibi d. Keith Pech 3-1.
Final: Ren d. Csibi 3-2.

U900  Final: Mike Keim d. Chris Jordan 3-1.

Senior Over 40  Semi’s: Yong Ren d. Iraj Golmohammadi 3-0; Chip Coulter d. Sunny Lee 3-0.
Final: Ren d. Coulter 3-0.

Open  Quarter’s: Samson Dubina d Alex Averin 4-2; Alex Csibi d. Roger Liu 4-1; Keith Pech d. Tak Cheong Ip 4-1; Yong Ren d. Shrey Bafna 4-0.
RR Semi’s: 1. Samson Dubina d. Ren 4-2; d. Pech 4-2; d. Csibi 4-2.
Positions 2-4 tied on matches and games broken on points
2. Keith Pech d. Csibi 4-1.
3. Alex Csibi d. Ren 4-1.
4. Yong Ren d. Pech 4-1.

U1100 Semi’s: Joseph Kneer d. Greg Cosby 3-1; Richard DeVenezia d. Yansong Lin 3-1.
Finals: DeVenezia d. Kneer 3-0.

U1700  Semi’s: Dave French d. Joe Sabella 3-2; Shuhei Shimamura d. Joe Grandalski 3-2.
Finals: Shimamura d. French 3-2.

U700  Final: David Lauinger d. Janset Aykanat  3-0.

U1300  Semi’s: Tony Ioffe d. Carl Swindell 3-0; Pete Spearman d. Craig Nivens 3-0.
Finals: Spearman d. Ioffe 3-0.

U2200  Semi’s: Ali Khatami d. Tak Cheong Ip 3-1; Alex Averin d. Don Hamilton 3-0.
Finals: Averin d. Khatami 3-2.

2800 Doubles  Semi’s: Malis/Scarnato d. Baker/Diamond 3-1; Pepper/Rostankowski d. Grandalski/Nivens 3-1.
Finals: Pepper/Rostankowski d. Malis/Scarnato 3-1.

U1800  Semi’s: Kevin Turner d. Joe Ciarrochi 3-0; Tomo Teraoka d. Scott Badillo 3-1.
Finals: Teraoka d. Turner 3-1.

U1600  Semi’s: Jabari Jourdan-Ali d. Logan Herman 3-1; Sarah Jalli d. Eric Sindledecker 3-2.
Finals: Jourdan-Ali d. Jalli 3-0.

Pro Singles  RR Finals:
1. Alex Averin 2-0 d. Csibi 3-1; d. Liu 3-1.
2. Alex Csibi 1-1 d. Liu 3-1.
3. Roger Liu 0-3.

U1450  Semi’s: Sarveen Lhatami d. Jeff Pepper 3-2; Carl Swindell d. Roman Kozlov 3-2.
Finals: Swindell d. Khatami 3-1.

U2000  Semi’s: Ken Roskos d. Carl Bradley 3-0; Tomo Teraoka d. Raymond Nagel 3-0.
Finals: Roskos d. Teraoka 3-1.

Junior U14  RR Event:
1. Sarah Jalli 3-0 d. Khatami 3-0; d. Nagpure 3-0; d, Su 3-0.
2. Sarveen Khatami 2-1 d. Nagpure 3-0; d. Su 3-0.
3. Nilaksh Nagpure 1-2 d. Su 3-1.
4. Matthew Su 0-3.

3400 Doubles  Semi’s: Ng/Strawn d. French/Gransalski 3-2; Kron/Kron d. Luo/Teraoka 3-1.
Finals: Kron/Kron d. Ng/Strawn 3-1.