(By Steve Hopkins)
Day 1 at the 2018 Butterfly Cary Cup Championships at Triangle Table Tennis Center

The signature event at the Cary Cup is the two-day Giant Round Robin that begins on Saturday morning, with 160 players from across the US and Canada, but the events scheduled on Thursday and Friday aren’t without their own excitement.

 There were 36 entries in Thursday’s Open Round Robin event including seven entrants with ratings over 2300.  The round robin groups proceeded pretty much as expected with the top seed present in each group advancing. And, in fact, there was not a single result in the elimination rounds that did not involve the higher seed winning the match – except for Jimmy Butler.  Butler, who has a long list of accomplishments including being members of the US National Teams, Olympic Teams,World Team Cup Bronze Medalist and MVP, reaching a world ranking of number 70 and winning multiple National Championships, entered the event as the third seed.  2487 rated Butler then upset the No.2 seed (Hammed-Taiwo Adeyinka 2534) in the Semis in a 5-game thriller (-5, 8, 10, -10, 9) to reach the Finals.  And in the Finals, Butler upset top seed Jishan Liang (2641) in three straight (9, 4, 10).