(by Steve Hopkins, photo ITTF)
The United States ran the table at home as the ITTF Americas U11 & U13 Championships concluded in Houston last week. American players won gold in all of the events (all four singles titles, all six doubles titles, and all four team events). Expanded results actually included Americans taking 43 of the total 56 medals. Eight days of competition ran September 9-16 at the Houston International Table Tennis Academy, with 152 players from 12 countries.
US National Team Coach Tim Wang was quoted in the USATT coverage as saying, “What stood out most to me was their ability to stay focused, compete through adversity, and continue fighting for every point.”
In U13 Boys’ Singles it was USA’s Ethan Zhou over USA’s Jacob Kordus 3-2 with USA’s Evan Dong and Brazil’s Lucas Ewald finishing third. In U13 Girls’ Singles, top seeded Anya Shanbhag (USA) lost 0-3 in the Final to USA’s Shreya Venkateraman who upset three players to win including both the top and second seeds. Allison Zhang (USA) and Brazil’s Luiza Fontanive finished third.
U11 Boys’ Singles went to top seeded Allen Mao of the USA who won without losing a game. He defeated USA’s William Jin in the Final and Shuban Baviskar and William Zhang (both USA) finished third. U11 Girls Singles went to USA’s Mia Yang over Brazil’s Manuela Rodrigues in a tight 3-2 match. USA’s Sophia Ferreira and Argentina’s Yasmin Aranki finished third.
The U.S. also won all six doubles events:
- Mini-Cadet Boys: Chirag Pradhan and Evan Dong. The pair also won U13 Boys’ Doubles at July’s U.S. Nationals.
- Mini-Cadet Girls: Allison Zhang and Amanda Liu.
- Mini-Cadet Mixed: Chirag Pradhan and Anya Shanbhag, another pairing that won at the Nationals. Pradhan left Houston with two golds in doubles and Shanbhag with one.
- Hopes Boys: Allen Mao and William Jin, the same two who met in the singles Final. Mao collected his second gold in Houston.
- Hopes Girls: Mia Yang and Shreya Srinivasan. Yang also won two golds.
- Hopes Mixed: Shuban Baviskar and Sophia Ferreira, who each had a third-place singles finish to go with the title.
The team events were a family affair for the Americans. Chile was the only other country to reach a team Final, where it lost 3-1 to the U.S. in Mini-Cadet Boys. In the other three, it was Team USA over Team USA. USA 1 defeated USA 2 in the Mini-Cadet Girls Final by a 3-0 score, and USA 1 also topped USA 2 in the Hopes Boys and USA 1 over USA 2 in Hopes Girls.
A solid performance by TeamUSA. With our juniors performing this well, this is a step up from results in recent years. There’s probably an advantage to playing at home in Houston – but this is also a big step forward for the overall level of play. Time for all of our players and coaches to celebrate.
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