(by Steve Hopkins)
Last week, Mississauga, Canada was host to a WTT Youth Contender Series event. The tournament players from all over the world with top seeds from Slovakia and Poland and Japan and Nigeria – but was a real showcase for Canadian players and select US players who were given this opportunity to play closer to home.
Butterfly players had great success including Kef Noorani who won U17 Boys, Sanuka Herath who won U15 Boys, Jaden Jia who won U13 Boys, Olivia Huang who won U15 Girls and Amber Lin who won U13 Girls.
The top seed in U19 Boys Singles was Samuel Arpas, and while he needed all five games to win in the Final over Abdulbasit Abdulfatai of Nigeria, Arpas won in dominant fashion spreading 3 lost games over his four matches. Canadians Jason Louie and Meech Dullaert were the Semifinalists. The top seed, Japan’s Rin Mende, didn’t lose a game on her way to winning U19 Girls Singles. USA’s Mandy Yu finished second, and Canada’s Ivy Pan and USA’s Abigail Yu were the Semifinalists. The U19 Mixed Doubles title went to a mixed-country team with USA’s Bosman Botha teaming with Japan’s Rin Mende.
U17 Boys was dominated by American players with Kef Noorani defeating Yashraj Shah in the all-USA Final. Piotr Lacki and Canada’s Hongze Shan were the Semifinalists. The U17 Girls event was also an all-USA Final with Mandy Yu defeating Abigail Yu and a pair of Canadians falling the Semifinals (Ivy Pan and Alexus Lee).
Canada’s Sanuka Herath defeated USA’s Ahinav Shirbhate in the Final of U15 Boys. Canada’s Ting Him Ho and Lucas Chen finished in third. It was all Canada in the U15 Girls event with Olivia Huang winning over Alexus Lee and Cindy Zhu and Zoe Patry finishing third. USA’s Kef Noorani and Abigail Yu won the U15 Mixed Doubles event.
In U13 Boys it was USA’s Jaden Jia over Canada’s Daniel Liang (Jaden won all 12 games he played). Alvin Sun and William Li fell in the semis and settled for third. Canada took all the medals in U13 Girls with Amber Lin winning, Melissa Jia finishing second, and Olivia Wang and Sophia Wang sharing third. U11 Boys was all Canadian with Aaron Mingran Wang winning, Kevin Yang finished second, and Darren Chen and Alex Ding in third. U11 Girls was also all Canadian with Olivia Wang winning, Emily Xin in second, and Tiffany Zhan and Fan Kexin in third.
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