(by Steve Hopkins, photo by WTT)

San Francisco was host to the WTT Youth Contender event last week – with the competition held at the 888 Table Tennis Center from January 2 -5.  Top junior players were not just from the US and Canada, but also Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Poland, the Philippines, Ecuador, and many other nations.

Nandan Naresh upset top seeded Aditya Sareen in the Semifinals of the U19 Boys event and then went on to defeat Daniel Tran 3-2 in the All-US Final.  The U19 Girls followed almost the same script with top seeded Kheith Cruz of the Philippines losing to USA’s Tashiya Piyadasa in the Semifinals creating an All-American Final between Piyadasa and Sally Moyland.  However, despite dropping the first game, Moyland won the next three to win the U19 Girls crown.  The U19 Mixed Doubles title also went to a USA pairing as Sally Moyland and her partner Alex Luo won 3-0 over Liu and Tran.

Aditya Sareen (who plays for Australia but also has connections in the US) dominated the U17 Boys event, defeating Joshua Joseph, Alex Luo, and Thitaphat Preechayan to reach the Final, and then defeating Poland’s Patryk Zyworonek 3-1 to win the event.  USA’s Irene Yeoh topped USA’s Mandy Yu 3-1 to win the U17 Girls title.  It was Thitaphat Preechayan of Thailand over Philippines’ Khevine Cruz 3-2 in the Finals of the U15 Boys event.  American girls dominated the U15 Girls event with Jiaqi Zhu over Anagha Kasichainula in one Semifinal and Dariah Feng over Yudi Jin in the other.  Zhu went on to take the Final 3-0 over Feng (with all medals going to Americans).  U15 Mixed Doubles went to Kef Noorani and Irene Yeoh.  USA’s Joe Zhang won U13 Boys with his 3-2 win over Evan Dong.  U13 Girls’ title went to Jiaqi Zhu with her 3-0 win over Alice Chen.  In U11 Boys it was Allen Mao over Richik Ghosh 3-1, and in U11 Girls it was Holly Huang over Tanisha Balamurugan.

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