(BY DEV DASSARMA/NJTTC)
The New Jersey Regional Hopes Training Camp and Trial were held on weekend of March 25-26th at the NJTTC with twenty young players participating in the different events. They came from all over the Northeast with players from six states present namely New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts and Maryland.
The key observation was that there were three Left handed players in the boys out of a field of 11 and were at the eighteen hundred level. The games became intense as competition went to the next level and both Semifinals went up to Deuce in fifth game.
The prior day camp had a festive feeling with a fun environment with Pizza party offered by NJTTC management. Siblings of some of the Hopes kids participated in the camp which started up with warmup with tennis ball soccer, then participants went through footwork drills, multiball and finally played king of the hill games.
One camp and tournament participant, Shish Hu was an inspirational participant at the camp. She suffered a debilitating accident when the car she was travelling in got hit by a drunk driver last year. She was in coma for two months and is recovering from brain damage. She still has double vision and other ailments from the accident, yet she showed a tremendous fighting spirit to win the match against silver medalist, and lost closely in another match in the fifth game. She narrowly missed out on selection because of that last fifth game, if she would have won that game she would have come in second and qualified for the team!
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