Canadian Team Wins a Shocker!

The 2005 STIGA North American Teams Table Tennis Championship continued a tradition of excellence, but the highlight was the final tie of the Elite Division, perhaps the best Finals in the history of the tournament!

One hundred and ninety teams entered the huge competition at the Baltimore Convention Center. Table Tennis Pioneers, the tournament vendor, represented sponsor STIGA and presented a huge inventory of goods, to the satisfaction of the attendees. Tournament Director Fong Hsu and Tournament Referee Bill Walk kept the tournament on schedule and inside the rules, as usual!

Although the ‘Teams’ is basically one huge event, with all teams entered in the same category, play was divided into 12 divisions, each with its own Champion. Special categories were also noted based on team roster composition. The two most prominent are the NCTTA Collegiate award, going to the highest-placing team whose members are all enrolled in college, and the Women’s award, which goes to the highest-placing all female squad. Texas Wesleyan University easily captured the College prize, reaching the Quarterfinals of the Elite Division. For this, they received a new STIGA Expert table, newly branded with the natabletennis website on the end skirts. NEWGY ROBO-PONG Women were the highest placing distaff group, edging out the Chinese entry, Chengdu University Women. Lily Yip, Tawny Banh and Crystal Huang richly earned their $1200 prize money!

But as usual, all eyes were turned on Sunday to the single elimination playoffs in the Elite Division. Quarterfinal monies of $650 went to Texas Wesleyan University, Big Apple Table Tennis NYC, NYTTC#1, and Canada Junior Boys. A large and engaged crowd saw the All-Stars, Adam Hugh, Han Xiao and Li Yuxiang defeat the Texas Wesleyan Group, Big Apple fell to Canada 2006, NYTTC was eliminated by Canada 2008, and it was the misfortune of the Canadian Juniors to meet the top seed, New York Athletic Club. New York Athletic Club, David Zhuang along with international veterans Feng Zhe and Zhu Hong Bin were heavy favorites, and barely dropped a game on their trip to the semis.

The Semi-finals at 2PM were run side-by-side in the arena on Tables 1 and 2. A large crowd filled our bleachers and saw New York Athletic Club absolutely dominate the Canada 2006 entry. Now playing a format that made each match the best of seven games, but the tie the best of five matches, NYAC ran out a quick 3-0 win against Xavier Therien, Homayoun Kamkar-Parsi and Shen Qiang. They simply could get nothing started. Canada 2008 played the All-Stars and while the partisan, largely American crowd, rooted hard for Adam Hugh against Wilson Zhang; it was all Adam could do to scrape a game. Adam was impressive, even in his losing effort, but Wilson’s comeback from a 10-5 deficit was a real backbreaker. Han Xiao was not able to overcome his longtime junior nemesis, Bence Csaba, leaving it to Li Yuxiang to try to keep the All-Stars alive against Pradeeban Peter-Paul. It was not to be, although Li did bring gales of laughter to the spectators and the Umpire, and even his opponent. Having driven Praddy deep from the table, Li executed a perfect drop shot to win the point, and insisted that Peter-Paul acknowledge his spectacular play. Then he flipped a second point for himself on the scoring machine, claiming that play that good deserved to count for two! It was all in good fun, and even Praddy cracked up over Li’s affable antics. Both Canada 2006 and All-Stars got $1600 payoffs for their efforts.