Stefan Feth was obviously the odds on favorite to win the group, which he did, although young Jeff Huang scored a moral victory in scraping Feth for a game, 15-13. The youngster had his decisive match when he played second seed Anh Nguyen. What a tough competitor Anh is! Despite dropping the first game to Huang, Anh took second place with a 4-1 win. Huang and Loc Bao Ngo obviously didn’t feel there was anything meaningless in their match to settle third and fourth place, with Jeff coming back to avoid the upset, 8,-9,-10,6,7,9. When Nguyen and Feth played to settle first and second place, Nguyen made a fine kill into Stefan’s wide forehand. The crowd roared their admiration when Feth, at nearly full extension, reached that ball in his backcourt and slapped it around the net post for a clean winner! Even more miraculous, it seemed to me, was that Feth had also regained his position and was ready for any return by the time the ball hit the table. This is one amazing player!

While the muscular Alex Aponte and Peter Zajac both defeated Tuan Le, Le had one of the major upsets of the tournament when he beat Freddie Gabriel 11-9 in the seventh game. That left Aponte and Le tied with records of 1-2, and since the head-to-head result went to Aponte, he would place ahead of Le. So that meant that in the last match of the group, if Zajac beat Gabriel, a three way tie would be created between Gabriel, Le and Aponte. Instead, Gabriel, in another seven-gamer, defeated Zajac creating a two way tie between himself and Peter. Since Freddie won the head-to-head battle, he finished first in the group despite his upset loss and Zajac was second. Freddie never said a word to the control desk about an injury, but we later heard that he was playing with a thumb split wide open and glued back together. Now that’s a competitor!

Barney Reed, extremely focused, defeated all three of his cohorts to finish first, very efficiently. Second place is a lot more confusing. First, Jackie Lee defeated Nan Li in seven games. Then Nan Li defeated Avishy Schmidt 8, 8,3,10. Meanwhile, Jackie was called away to play her best of five games Women’s Singles final, which she lost to Maki Tamaru after leading 2-1. Unhappy with that result, physically exhausted, the tournament crowded and hot, and facing a ton of homework anyway, Jackie defaulted to Avishy in her last match. That left all three players with records of 1-2, but there was no three way tie. Here, the point system applies. In this method, each player is assigned 2 points for a win, 1 point for a loss and 0 points for a default. So Nan Li has 4 points (losing to Jackie and Barney, beating Avishy) Avishy has 4 points (default win over Jackie, losses to Barney and Nan) and Jackie has only 3 points (beating Nan Li, losing to Barney and defaulting to Avishy) so its not a three way tie between players with 1-2 records, it’s a two way tie between Schmidt and Li with Nan winning the head-to-head match and she is second. See that wasn’t so difficult, was it?

The whole group begins with an upset as the left-handed Vadillo comes back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the top-seeded Yong Ren, 3, -8,-9,-8, 4, 4, and 5! This is a dangerous group, as it takes Misha Kazantsev six games to defeat the Qualifier, Kevin Au, -4, 7, 6,-3, 7, and 7! Count the points played, and its Misha 51, Kevin Au 49. Kevin shows that he’s a battler when he plays the top-seeded Yong Ren as well. It's straight games, but by scores of 10,7,10 and 6. Vadillo’s sitting pretty with his upset of Ren, but can’t duplicate the result with Kazantsev. Misha handles the lightning quick Vadillo in six, 8,-7, 9, 12,-3, 5. With two matches to play, only Kazantsev is assured of making the Quarterfinals, so the competition stays intense! Vadillo does what he needs to do against the stubborn Kevin Au, 7,-9,-9, 11,-13, 15, and 7! You have to hand it to Mr. Au; he fought his best in going 0-3 in the group. That leaves Vadillo at 2-1, so the best Yong Ren can do is create a three way tie if he defeats Misha. This match is tied at 2 games, again at 3 games, and the pivotal game goes in Misha’s pocket, making him a perfect 3-0 in the group, 9,9,-3,-10,8,-8,9. Wow! Yong Ren actually outscores Misha 69 to 63 but cannot have the match or a trip to the Quarters. Kazantsev and Vadillo advance. One tough group!