(By: Vlad Farcas)
On September 10th the 2022 BUTTERFLY San Antonio Fall Open, a 2-star USATT Sanctioned took place at the San Antonio Table Tennis Club in San Antonio, Texas. There were 63 players registered who competed in 8 events including 2 different doubles brackets.
The lower rating brackets lined up a lot of young prospects products of the San Antonio Table Tennis Youth Program as well as Austin Table Tennis Youth program, while in the Open Singles it was a battle between the young college students, members of the Texas Wesleyan Table Tennis Team and more experienced players like chopper Li Kewei who not to long ago was rated as high as 2682, lately couldn’t find his best form but came with great desire to win the 1st prize. Seed number 3 was a Japanese player named Shoko Kusuhara who visited Texas for the summer, back home being one of the coaches for the Japan Paralympic Team.
On the top half of the bracket, Texas Wesleyan’s Eduardo Tomoike rated 2541 met Kusuhara, battle which he won score 3-0, whilst on the bottom half another Texas Wesleyan player, Derron Douglas who came in with a rating of 1972 but actual level was probably around 2350 gave a great scare to Li Kewei, leading 2 games to 1 and 8-4 in points. It was Li’s experience which helped him get the comeback win and advance to a terrific final showdown against the Brazilian Eduardo Tomoike. The final was a great match-up between two very spectacular styles: Eduardo’s Japanese Penhold grip and Kewei’s amazing defense. Again, experienced prevailed and Li Kewei won the spectacular final score 3 games to 2, (11-9 in the decider)
Other Results:
U2200 Semifinals: Lia Morales def Deven De Leon; Derron Douglas def Rath Yin Finals: Derron Douglas def Lia Morales
U1950 Finals: Sofija Scepanovic def Rath Yin
U1750 Finals: Johnathon Fields def Van Savel
U1550 Finals: Diego Almeida def Nicholas Mott
U1250 Finals: Hudson Sanders def Neave Joy
U3600 Doubles Finals: Ryan Martin and Caleb Dye def Shoko Kusuhara and Frank Morales
U2800 Doubles Finals: Jenny Pobelova and Neave Joy def Momoko Kimoto and Cardon Paulos
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