2006 STIGA North American Teams Table Tennis Championship
November 24-26, 2006
Baltimore Convention Center

Event Overview

by Alan Williams

A record number of teams , 216, took the floor at the Baltimore Convention Center for this year’s tournament, the ninth annual installment of the much-loved event.  Every square foot of available table space was used, and 144 tables carried the load for matches over the three days.  

Tournament Director Fong Hsu did his normal excellent job in planning and executing this mammoth competition, the single largest tournament in North America.  Teams from all over the world, China, Japan, Hungary, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Guyana, among others, and from across the United States participated, with more than 875 players taking part.  

Tournament Referee Bill Walk and his Deputy, Mike Skinner, assembled a stellar crew of Internationally qualified umpires for supervising play and adjudicating the few disputes that arose.  Their work was excellent, providing coverage throughout the long hours of play.

The ‘Teams’ is a strange brew, a mix of highly serious competitors aiming for the $7,000 Championship prize and recreational players who are there to ‘have fun’.  Some of these lesser lights are earnestly seeking rating points, others are there to renew old friendships and share sweat and fellowship.  For some, the tournament is a masquerade ball.  Two traditionally costumed teams once again appeared, Division 13 Champions “Hammer of Thor” sporting their Viking helmets and rubber mallets, and the “Boo’s Brothers”.  The Brothers appeared dressed like the rest of us on Friday, but by Sunday’s finals were wearing convict’s stripes.  A new contender also appeared, as four deluded gentlemen from New Jersey overly identified themselves with the new international film star, Borat.  Styling themselves as “Borat in Baltimore”, with fake moustaches, this team claimed to represent Kazhakstan.  Fearing to upset their mental applecart, the tournament accommodated them.

Stiga North American Teams Championships

Baltimore, MD • Nov. 24-26, 2006

By Tim Boggan

“…Although victorious, the California women were not too happy about the way they were treated this tournament. First, on Saturday, they sat around, waited, waited, didn’t play from 4:30 in the afternoon till almost 10:00 at night, then had to begin a tie at 1:00 in the morning! That’s just unconscionable on the part of Detroit officials. Then, on Sunday, the women had to play their final while the men’s final was going on. And, worse, they had no Arena set up for them—just rolled-over tables forming a barrier of sorts from the gradually-emptying-out-Cobo-Hall crowd on the other, D-J [Lee] side of things….”

--History of U.S. Table Tennis, Vol. IV

That was the U. S. Open Team Championships Thanksgiving weekend 36 years ago.

But, ah, the North American T.T. Team Championships this Thanksgiving weekend, 2006. Unlike that anti-feminine one from our History, this one draws thanks not only from the participating women, but from all those attending—players and spectators alike.

Yes, the Sport’s a mite different from what it was. Comes a visitor in 2006 from the space-time continuum of the 1960’s to watch play on the144 Stiga Expert tables at the Baltimore Convention Center, and what does he see? A record 216 teams (875 players) providing a field of heretofore unrealized depth for Tournament President Richard Lee, Director Fong Hsu, and Richard’s wife Wendy Troy who’ll soon be registering a future addition to the Tom Nguyen/Palmar/Lee/Troy Staff (“Yes, the baby’s going to be a boy”)—the final 20 of these teams contending for the Championship being given the Taraflex red-carpet treatment from Gerflor.

And what’s this? Asian Men playing—playing hard—against Asian Women! Not long ago that was a cultural no-no. Listening to NATT Media/Marketing-man Alan Williams pronouncing so conscientiously those Chinese names that give no hint of gender, this visitor from the ‘60’s must think he’s in a time warp. Of course Alan is also responsible for interfacing with such sponsors—such divergent sponsors unheard of in decades past—as Dave Sakai’s Senoda Printing, State Mortgage, and Phillips Seafood. Optimum Sync this visitor may buy at Mitch Rothfleisch’s Stiga Pioneers booth, but in sync himself with what’s happening in today’s Game he sure isn’t—“I never lost to a woman in my life,” he says.

Preliminary Play

But, alright, our visitor will catch on, catch up. And so will we—for I begin coverage of the teams contending for the Championship with Friday’s Preliminary upsets.

In Group 8, the top seed, Killerspin Tech, didn’t show enough “killer”spin or winning technique. Ben Johnson (who’s been coaching at Attila Malek’s Power Pong Academy), Keith Alban (who’d like to be out West too, live in San Francisco), and Freddie Gabriel (winner of last year’s Swaythling Club Sportsmanship Award who says he plays now “for fun”—when didn’t he?) shared individual one-match wins, but could do no more against an under-rated, advancing Mexico.

In Group 11, Left Right, Left Right more 5-4 rag-tag staggered than marched by the Attache Ta Tuk Canadian team, then lined up smartly, as if for free hamburgers, to beat Porkys 5-0. Porkys is the name of the Truelson restaurant in Minneapolis, and, in the Senoda tie, the family’s best player here, Thor, hurled his 2175 hammer at one, Eric Boggan, almost a quarter of a century ago World #18, but, um, a little out of practice in recent years, and did him in. This caused, if not blood to flow in Baltimore, beer (root beer?) to spill in clanked glasses in Minneapolis, for iconic Eric is in Thor’s Hall of Odin.

Boggan didn’t play in the Senoda vs. Left Right, Left Right tie, and though Barney Reed, Jr., Rick Seemiller, and Napoleon “Rocky” Reyes tried to break the opposing formation with an initial piercing thrust—Reed beat Trevor Runyan; Seemiller beat John Leach; and Reyes had a 2-1 lead over NATT Prez Richard Lee—it was Senoda who’d eventually fall 5-3. For, though Barney, scrambling in from Germany, would get by John after being down 10-8 in the 5^th, Richard would rally to take his match with Rocky. After which, Reyes would lose to both Runyan and Leach, and Lee, sharp from having played in the German Open, would down Rick, then follow by upsetting Barney in 5.

In Group 13, Sparring To Win suggests this team had belted out a couple of 5-0 practice matches and was now ready to win—which they did, upsetting 5-3 not the ABJL but ABDJ team of Adam and Judy Hugh, Barry Dattel, and Dickie Fleisher. The matriarch of this Alphabet family, Lily Yip, had remained in her N.J. warren and was here replaced by Dickie whose grip, game, and general appearance didn’t resemble hers in the least.

The winning Sparring team—they train together at the Canadian Ottawa Center—consisted of Samson Dubina from the U.S.; Olivier Rieutord originally from France but now at 20 about to become a Canadian citizen; and Joji Yamazaki who comes from Niigata, a four-hour drive northwest from Tokyo. Knockdown punches that saw these Ottawa “outsiders” win on points were delivered by Yamazaki—11-8 in the 5^th over Judy; 11-8 in the 5^th over Adam (who’d taken the first two games)—and, after Dickie had lost twice, by Samson in an exciting 8^th match which, amidst multitudinous “CHO!” shouts from Barry and Adam, he beat an up-to-the-table, block-all-day-and-into-the-night Judy 13-11 in the 5^th (after Judy had saved the 4^th at 12-10). 

In Group 14, last year’s Division 2 winner, the Hungarian Airlines-sponsored Malev SC Hungary team, again failed to advance, was beaten by Guyana, 5-3. Which—oh yes, you could tell—didn’t sit well at all with a fuming Coach Vargas. But of course he had high hopes for his two teenagers—15-year-old 2005 Hungarian Junior Champ Daniel Schaffer who plays in Hungary’s Second League, and 16-year-old Soma Fekete who’s on the National Junior Team. “In three years,” said Vargas, “these boys will be among the top 30 players in the world.”

Fekete opened for Malev by splitting the first two games, then won the pivotal 3^rd 20-18 to take the match from Shawn Embleton who told me that someone had told him that he was the highest rated player in the U.S. using Friendship rubber. But such a distinction might be in jeopardy, for Shawn, after having six match points on Fekete, also lost to Schaffer who, by convincingly dropping his other two matches, did not endear himself to his frustrated Coach. The third Hungarian in this tie, another 16-year-old, Miklos Kekedi, lost twice, but that was o.k.—he was primarily the Team interpreter. Fekete’s remaining win was against 30-year-old Paul David, 11-9 in the 5^th; his remaining loss, the deciding 8^th match where he gamely went down 12-10 in the 3^rd to Guyana’s Anson Bispham. 

And, finally, in Group 16, the NYTTC 2 team, Captained by Gail Kendall, eliminated the East China University Boys team from contention, 5-2, in a win that might easily have been reversed. These young Chinese would be awarded the $300 for best U-18 Boys’ Team—though Larry Bavly tells me our Boston Juniors (rated 3792) went undefeated in Division 10 (average rating there 4900), so at least give them a nod. The East China Boys varied in age, height, and ability—with, not surprisingly, 13-year-old Justin Yao losing his two matches (but, coached by Gao Jun, winning his opening game against Coach Liu Hui Yuan). N.Y.’s Kazuyuki (“Kazu”) Yokoyama, who, after playing in his high school days back in Japan, retired, came to the U.S. to study, played some more until he suffered a herniated disc, then quit for 5 years—he, primarily a chopper and so fun to watch, struggled to beat both He Hao 11-9 in the 5th, and Meng Zhiyu 14-12 in the 5^th. Shao Yu had to work, too, to beat Meng 12-10 in the 4^th, and He 11-9 in the 4^th.

The only 5-3 contested match among the advancers was the New York Athletic Club Women over the Peking University Division B team (the eventual Division 2 winners over the Chinese Boys). Li (“Alicia”) Yuanyuan, a former member of the Chinese National Team who afterwards went off to play in the Spanish League and coach the Granada team for 7 years, lost two for the Club women—to Ms. Shi Shengnan majoring in Journalism/ Communication, and to Lv Jiahui, a Senior in the School of International Relations. Lv also won his match from Yao Tong, victor over Peking’s Soph Eco major Ms. Wang Ye, as well as Shi. Gao of course won all three of her matches.

Division A Play 

As in the Preliminaries, the four round robins of 5 teams each were drawn in according to seedings…with the four highest-rated teams that had been byed out of Pre-lim play—Canada One; New York Athletic Club Men; East China University Men’s Team; and Israel—heading, respectively, Divisions 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D. The two top teams from each Division would then advance into Single Elimination play to produce a quarter’s, semi’s, final.

In Division 1A, Canada One advanced over second-place finisher, East China University Women’s Team 2. Still, against the Defending Champions, score two points for the women: Cui Chenwei 11-9 in the 4^th stood up to Pradeeban Peter-Paul’s power, and Lu Ying, down 2-0, rallied to put Bence Csaba behind the 8, 8, 8 ball. The only other tie that wasn’t won 5-0 or 5-1 saw Guyana 5-3 beat NYTTC 1 (chopper Ms. Lee Soo Yeon, a 28-year-old former L.A. professional; the Ko brothers, Carlos and Edward; Dan Kim, and penhold hitter Kim Bong Geun). Leading the attack was 41-year-old lefty Sydney Christophe, former Caribbean Champion and 17 times Guyana Champ, and Anson Bispham, back after an injury and playing better than ever. 

Guyana also put up a fight against Mexico whose players had to pay their own way here. David beat Rafael Mendez, a post-graduate student at the University of Puebla and the current Mexican National Singles finalist to 20-year-old Marcos Madrid (a winner in the Canada One tie over Peter-Paul). Bispham almost beat Rafael, going down 11-9 in the 5^th, and Shawn Embleton fought to 7 in the 5^th against Juan Pedro Lujan, Singles runner-up at the 2006 Central American Championships.

In Division 1B, the New York Athletic Club Men advanced (without losing a match) over the struggling second-place finisher, Texas Wesleyan University Captained/Coached by Olympian Jasna Reed. Give Mark Hazinski some feisty credit for pressing Gao Yan Jun. Mark lost to him, 13-11 in the 4^th, 12-10 in the 5^th (though, m’god, from 8-5 up in that 5^th game Hazinski played abominably, finally losing it completely—at 10-all serving into the net, and at 10-11 putting his serve return into the net). But then give Mark lots of credit for quickly getting his head together to force Thomas Keinath into the 5^th, and for focusing well in ties thereafter—maybe well enough to win our Dec. National’s.

Thanks to both Hazinski, who’s now a Freshman scholarship student at Texas Wesleyan (a new set of pressures for Mark noted his comradely teammate Carlos Chiu), and to Yang Shigang, only just arrived in the States after playing in different clubs in Europe and coaching in Shanghai, the collegians were able—with Mark and Yang both overcoming Alex Perez and De Tran—to down the N.Y. International TTC 1 team, 5-3 (Yang losing to the ageless Li Yuxiang, and Croatian coed Ines Perhoc losing the other two matches).

Texas Wesleyan also defeated the East China University Girls, 5-2 (University…Girls”?) who themselves had advanced out of the Pre-lims with a 5-2 win over Suguru Araki’s “California J Leaguers.” This was a deceptively named team (the “J” stands for?), since they’re all students at Araki’s Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai, Japan. Anyway in this battle of the sexes (and universities), the Girls beat TFU—with Wang Xueling allowing the men some save face by dropping matches from 2-1 up to Yuichiro Yabuki and Takenori Yamazaki. These Girls, like the Boys, would take the $300 U-18 team prize, while the TFU team would go on to top the 3^rd Division. 

Tex Wes, again thanks to Hazinski and Yang (who’s going for a Master’s in Education—he and his wife want to be teachers), also defeated the Chengdu University team, 5-3 (with Ludovic Gombos again giving up 2 matches and Yang 1 to Wang Chen). Chengdu’s Yang Zhang, 19, and Huang Bang Chao, 18, were originally going to be joined by 3 other players (also presumably young men), but when all 3 couldn’t get visas, Wang Chen agreed to help them out, the more so because she could use the competitive play. The teenagers’ arrival on Thanksgiving Day after a 20-hour plane trip had to have taken a toll on them.

Also defeating Chengdu in the only 5-4 tie in Division 1B was the N.Y. International TTC 1 team. They’d advanced over Borat in Baltimore—the equivalent in team titledom of this year’s convict-clad Boos Brothers. Wang Chen took her 3, but Huang, who’d started his professional training at 8, and at 13 was playing for his city team, lost two key matches—a 16-14 in the 4^th to Alex Perez, and an 11-8 in the 5^th to De Tran. And though Yang Zhang stopped Dr. De (“Such great serves, such beautiful technique these Chinese kids have,” said De), he, too, twice came up short—first, dropping a killer 13-11 game in the 5^th to Li Yuxiang (such fun to see Li penhold-slash backhands), then in the 9^th match rallying from two games down only to find himself 8-6 behind in the 5^th to Perez. Time! Play resumes at 9-7—with neither player catching the scoring error, or being apprised of it, until after Alex ends the match with an 11-9 serve and blistering follow. Teammate Tahl Leibovitz himself couldn’t have done better. Come to think of it—where was Tahl? He wasn’t supposed to play this tie? One was so used to seeing—and hearing—him on court….Ah, here he is, you couldn’t keep him away, contributing a win, as does Alex, which, with Li’s blitzes, is enough to 5-3 defeat the threatening Shanghai Girls.

In Division 1C, the top seed, East China University Men’s Team, advanced easily except for their 5-3 tie with the New York Athletic Club Women. Though Gao Jun didn’t play, the men had enough trouble with each of her teammates. U.S. World Team member “Crystal” Huang beat Zhai Yibo 12-10 in the 4^th; former Chinese National Li Yuanyuan beat Yang Gan, past and/or present Chinese Collegiate Champ, 11-9 in the 4^th, 11-9 in the 5^th; and Tawny Banh, coaching and wanting to learn more about Business Management in her study time, beat Zhai 15-13 in the 4^th, and almost did in two others—lost 11-9 in the 4^th to Yang and went into the 5^th with Xiao Han.

Never mind that Banh and her Gao-less teammates went down 5-2 to that pesky Sparring team when only Yao Tong could bring forth wins. Tawny’s pinnacle accomplishment this tournament—one she’ll long remember—was 11-9 in the 4th beating Peking University Coach Laing Geliang, as his business card has it. But so what, nobody needs to look at his card. They know who he is, they line the aisles when he plays, and they know he knows how to autograph whatever his many fans give him. Tawny’s win is over Liang Geliang, 1977 World Men’s Doubles and 1973 and ‘79 World’s Mixed Doubles Champion. 

The N.Y. Athletic Club women could win only one tie—against the three-times shut out Left Right team…or, wait, I’m tempted to make that the four-times shut out because, after John Leach, Trevor Runyan, and Whitney Ping got off to a 4-0 lead against Sparring to Win’s Dubina, Yamazaki, and Rieutord, they fell into old habits and lost 5 in a row! Yamazaki, for one, was full of surprises—I was amazed at how in just 7 months after arriving from Japan he can speak English so well.

Meanwhile, though not contesting with the East China Men’s team for first place, the Peking University Division A team advanced comfortably. Peking University, I learn from their attractive Delegation brochure, is perhaps the premier university in China, and site of the first Chinese National Championships in 1952. It will also, with the construction of a new Gymnasium, be the site of the 2008 Olympic Table Tennis Games. 

In Division 1-D, the top-seeded Israel team, Captain/Coached by Avishy “Avi” Schmidt, lost its preferred place in the upcoming Single Elimination draw to the undefeated East China University Women’s Team 1. That visitor I spoke of from the 1960’s had to be shaking his head when men from Israel and Canada, playing at an average 2600 level, were beaten 5-2 and 5-1 by women! In the Israeli tie, only 21-year-old Dai Ningyang, a member of the winning Chinese team at the Slovenia World University Championships, lost—to 4-time Israeli National Champion Sharon Yaniv and, perhaps a little carelessly, from 2-0 up, to Izzak Abramov, at the turn of the millennium World #112.

Against Canada Deux, East China’s 26-year-old post-graduate student (Economics/Sports) Yu Jingwei, current World University Singles and (with Dai) Doubles Champion, dropped the opener to Xavier Therien, and it appeared for a moment that, if Dai, up 2-1, would lose from 17-all that marathon 4^th game with Homayuan Kamkar-Parsi, the Canadians would be able to have some 2-0 momentum going. But it was not to be. And when Pierre-Luc Hinse, who’d spent two months playing in Germany this fall, couldn’t win his 1st game from 13-all against Lu Ying, and Xavier couldn’t win from 9-all in the 4^th against lefty penholder Liu Juan, it wasn’t surprising that Pierre-Luc didn’t have the juice to stop Dai in the 5^th.

Israel had 5-3 trouble with Canada Deux, running with a 4-1 start, but then getting temporarily blocked. Yaniv prevailed, 11-9 in the 4^th, over Therien, long one of Canada’s best but in another life—he’s almost 30 now—a settled-in computer programmer. Later, Xavier would have to key in another loss to Abramov, while Ron Davidovitz, Haifa Technical University student and currently Israel’s #2, beat Hinse, as would Sharon.

But Kamkar-Parsi, given to flamboyant bursts of attack, downed both Abramov in 4 and Davidovitz in 5, and when Hinse, too, defeated Abramov, Canada Deux was 3-4 challenging. But then Yaniv, who in 2002 had beaten our present U.S. Open Champion Aleksandar Karakasevic here in Baltimore, closed by parsing off Kamkar-Parsi’s play into identifiable losing parts. The 27-year-old Homayoun, I might add, has a lot of winning parts, too. He has a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering, teaches Digital Signal Processing, and works for Siemens on hearing aids. Everyone wants to hear the sound of the ball, the crowds, yes?

Though it wouldn’t affect their 2^nd-place standing, the Israelis almost lost their last tie to NYTTC 2. It’d been a long day—their 7 o’clock tie didn’t finish until 11:30, and Avi thought his players had under-performed. It was he who’d got them together—all were coaching all over Israel—and the agreement was they’d pay their airfare and Avi their hotel bill.

N.Y. chopper Kaz Yokoyama, who on retiring with that herniated disc, had gotten a Masters degree in International Business, then had come back to play in 2004, losing 35 pounds in the process. Moving around the court so intensely helps him physically to forget a bothersome ear-ringing affliction. He says the Sport broadens him mentally too—for he’s among so many different players with so many different points of view from so many different places. Down 2-0 in the opening match, he rallied for a gutsy 11-9 in the 5^th win over Yaniv, then split with Abramov and Davidovitz who’d once played in the Belgian League. Coach Liu’s son, Yang (“Andy”), lost all three—though in the 9^th match against Yaniv he made a gritty 12-14-in-the-4^th try. The New Yorkers came close to winning because Shao Yu scored 3 wins, the last a –11, -9, 8, 10, 10 thriller over Abramov who at the Eindhoven World’s had gotten to the round of 32. Shao was also responsible for New York’s two wins over Canada Deux.

The Vietnamese team sported Olympian Khoa Nguyen and he did his 3-match part against NYTTC 2, but neither Tuan Le, who said (don’t laugh) he recently beat some girls in an Oregon tournament, nor ’81 U.S. ACU-I Intercollegiate Champ Phan Tung (back playing again like ex-Viet National Richard Doverman) could give him an assist. Also, though Khoa downed Canadians Therien and Kamkar-Parsi, his teammate John Tran Thach, resolved but also regretting that his love for table tennis would keep him from family this holiday weekend, couldn’t, from 10-all in the 4^th, rally into the 5^th against Hinse. This Viet team, however, did take the $300 over 40 prize.

Quarter’s

There couldn’t have been a bigger comedown than the Defending Champion Canada One team losing 5-3 in the quarter’s to the Peking University Division A team. Wilson Zhang, touted by Announcer Alan Williams as “the highest-rated player in North America,” came through with 3 wins (repeatedly putting a finger up as if never quite ready for his opponent’s serve), but could get no help from his teammates. Bence Csaba, 21, who’d been back living in Canada since April, but who this fall had trained in China and had recently played in tournaments in Paris, Bayreuth and Warsaw, won a close 1^st game against Liang Geliang, then, hands repeatedly up in the air, as if more confused than exasperated by apparently not being able to read Liang’s changing spin, he began to self-destruct…after losing that 2^nd game dropping his racket to his foot and kicking it. Only for a moment did it get any better for him as he swatted away, seemingly uncaringly, at ball after ball. Against chopper extraordinaire Ding Ying, with the match tied, he rallied from 6-10 down in the 3^rd with spectacular shots, only to lose at game point—whereupon he did an even more spectacular though abbreviated cartwheel/handstand on the table. Then down 10-4 match point in the 4th he popped up the ball for Ding to hit away, and when she did he absurdly jumped to try to overhead it back.

Later, Ding, who’d played 7 years on China’s #2 National Women’s Team, was down 1-0 but up 6-5 with Peter-Paul back repeatedly lobbing until Ding got a net—which irritated Pradee so much that he walloped the ball into the stands, which was alright with the umpire, he sympathized, only then, unexpected turnabout, the Canadian took 6 in a row to go 2-0 up. But he didn’t win—Ding, steadily returning balls, attacking more now, careful, careful with a backhand opening, not swatting the ball but smoothly stroking it, outlasted him, 15-13 in the 5^th. After that Pradee could muster no enthusiasm against Gao Xi.

Ding also had her moments against Wilson, conqueror of Denmark’s Michael Maze in the Japan Open. With their match 1-1, North America’s #1 goes back to his bench, to Canada’s new much admired coach from Brazil, Marles Sergio Martins, who, with notebook out, quickly begins drawing maybe 8 table diagrams to make it clear just what he’s advising. Wilson takes the 3^rd, is up in the 4^th when Ding stretches to return a ball high, then, down on one knee off to the side of the table and knowing she’s out of the point, looks up to Wilson and smiles. Distracted, he misses the hanger—and looks for a moment as if he wants to contest the point. But what gentleman would do that?

Texas Wesleyan’s match-up with the East China University Women’s 1 team prompted Captain Jasna’s wry comment that, “Usually I like to see women do well, but I’m having a little problem here.” More than a little one—for though Hazinski took 3, won, dare I say, bare-knuckle fights against Dai Ningyang (12-10 in the 5^th) and Liu Juan (11-9 in the 5^th), it wouldn’t be enough to advance Tex-Wes to the semi’s. Against Liu, at 9-all in the 5^th, Mark fished beautifully, won the 10-9 point, and in a spontaneous reaction Liu batted the ball over her shoulder into the backcourt. Turns out, especially when she was slow to pick up the ball and come back to the table, the umpire thought she was stalling and gave her a yellow card. This brought Jasna up from the bench to point out that Liu had received a yellow card earlier. Problem was: this umpire had relieved an earlier one, and that umpire had not told this one about the yellow card. So this umpire declined to give a yellow/red one to finish the match.

Despite Mark’s gutsy wins, only Gombos, stopping Dai, 13-11 in the 4^th, could offer support. That left Tex-Wes 4-5 short. For, first, the lean, bespectacled Yang, reportedly the ’98 World University Champion, couldn’t quite penhold his way past Liu—losing a huge swing match, 12-10 in the 4^th, and 13-11 in the 5^th (after he’d led 8-3, and had to watch Liu fearlessly smack in two of his serves from 10-all). Then Gombos, up 2-1 against Yu Jingwei in the 9^th match, couldn’t contest the 4^th, and, though gamely, desperately exhorting himself aloud in the 5^th, couldn’t come back from a disastrous 0-6 start.

After a little testiness between the umpire and David Zhuang because of a late start, and a little “Don’t make me default you” push by Tournament Referee Bill Walk, play began between the East China University Women’s 2 team and the New York Athletic Club Men—with the 5-2 result being that these Women couldn’t join their sisters. The East China teams, I’d heard, came to Baltimore at Gao Jun’s urging, and were sponsored both by the University and the Table Tennis Club within it.

For the Athletic Club, the slightly built, ever-bouncy Thomas Keinath took his 3 (appearing against lefty penholder Lu Ying to accelerate his fast-paced play both at start and finish to win the 1^st at 1, the 5^th at 2). His teammates, in a battle of the sexes, split matches. Gao Yan Jun downed Henan’s former World University runner-up Cai Shanshan in 5, but then lost to Cui Chenwei, a 3-year veteran of the Austrian Leagues. Four-time U.S. Champion David Zhuang beat Cui, then lost 11-9 in the 4^th, 11-9 in the 5^th to Lu, and seemed almost avuncularly happy about it. He grabs her, I would say half-playfully, in a hug, from which she quickly extracts herself and, on coming back to her bench with a smile, puts up two fingers in a V.

The East China University Men also advanced to the semi’s, sweeping by Israel, 5-1—with Abramov’s 11-9 in the 4^th, 11-9 in the 5^th win over Zhai Yibo the only sign of opposition. Oh well, $600 for the quarter’s—covers the entry fees.

Semi’s and Final

Although the format changes to best 3 out of 5 matches, best 4 out of 7 games, the East China University Women’s Team 1, win or lose, will be assured of the same $600 top Women’s prize and $1200 for reaching the semi’s. But after Liu Juan blanks Liang, Chinese National Team member Gao Xi and former Super League player Yu Jingwei go at it up at the table, hopping in loops/exchanging off-the-bounce thrusts until Gao, her left hand way up for balance, her in-your-face YAH’S! as threatening as her aggressive play, proves 11-9 in the 6^th slightly too much for Yu. Ding follows with an easy win over Dai who has no rhythm, no timing, no patience—and Peking needs only one more. Still, the novelty of having an historic men’s/women’s final and the buzz of a women’s winner is kept strongly alive when Liu takes the first 3 games from Gao. But then what a deflating finish—she loses the next four (having been down 0-7 in the 7^th).

For the other semi’s, the NY Athletic Club vs. the East China Men, I was told that Zhuang figured to have the best chance style-wise if he played the 3^rd position, thereby playing the “weakest” East China player and maximizing the chance of a win. Additionally, our Han Xiao had trained the whole summer in China, had practiced against the very players he was now trying to beat and back then had held his own with at least one of them. However, this fall he’d begun attending the University of Maryland on an academic scholarship, so of course he was not the player he was this summer. Which was all too evident when righty penholder Yang Gan, showing off his reverse backhand, blitzed him.

But Thomas Keinath, who’s playing #3 for his Wurzburg team in Germany, and so has had to hurry over here and will have to hurry back, started strong, whipping in explosive off-the-bounce backhand flips and loops, to take a 3-0 lead against their Han Xiao (Xiao Han) and went on to win in 6.

So now with the tie even, Zhuang has come out to the table and is ready to play Zhai Yibo—or is he? Do my eyes deceive me, or do his? He appears to go over to have wife Joannie cut off a lock of his hair. It doesn’t help—he -12, -9, -9, -10 loses four straight close games. So is there still a chance for the NYAC? Keinath goes through Yang, as if he hopes to catch an earlier flight home. And now for the deciding match…Han Xiao, no make that Xiao Han, is the straight game winner. Our Zhuang and Han, I understand, feeling they under-performed, were forfeiting all or at least a good part of their share of the $1,200 prize money toward teammate Tommy’s expenses.

The final wasn’t in doubt either. But after Peking’s Gao and Zhou Zhengqing (where’d he come from?) went down 4-zip, one-ball finisher Zhai and more than one-ball returner Ding made a 6-game man-woman fight of it. That for the $7,000 1^st prize/$3,000 2^nd prize was dramatic.

I’m reminded in closing that, in 1971, our 58-year-old Hall of Famer Doug Cartland said he could beat former European Champion Agnes Simon “quite easily”—Simon being still among the Top 20 players in the world (along with 5 Chinese who were in the Top 10). Who thinks today, after watching these fierce competitors playing here in Baltimore, and considering decades of Chinese-European competition, that world-class women haven’t improved to the point where they’re still so weak as to be beaten by near-60-year-old American men? You don’t have to be a university student to understand that women players, especially with tournaments like this one, will continue to be taken far more seriously in the U.S., both by players and spectators, than they were, shamefully, 36 years ago.

Division 1 - Final

East China University Men d. Peking University, 3-0

· Xiao Han (ECUM) d. Gao Xi (PU), 7,3,9,9

· Yang Gan (ECUM) d. Zhou Zhengqing (PU), 7,4,9,7

· Zhai Yibo (ECUM) d. Ding Ying (PU), 7,6,-9,8,-9,5

Semifinals

East China University Men d. New York Athletic Club, 3-2

· Yang Gan (ECUM) d. Han Xiao (NYAC), 2,3,6,6

· Thomas Keinath (NYAC) d. Xiao Han (ECUM), 11,9,7,-9,-6,4

· Zhai Yibo (ECUM) d. David Zhuang (NYAC), 12,9,9,10

· Thomas Keinath (NYAC) d. Yang Gan (ECUM), 6,9,9,5

· Xiao Han (ECUM) d. Han Xiao (NYAC), 6,6,6,5

Peking University d. East China University Women 1, 3-1

· Liu Juan (ECUW1) d. Liang Geliang (PU), 2,6,4,6

· Gao Xi (PU) d. Yu Jingwei (ECUW1), 10,5,-10,7,-8,9

· Ding Ying (PU) d. Dai Ningyang (ECUW1), 10,3,4,4

· Gao Xi (PU) d. Liu Juan (ECUW1), -7,-7,-10,4,9,7,5

Quarterfinals

New York Athletic Club d. East China University Women 2, 5-2

· Gao Yan Jun (NYAC) d. Cai Shanshan (ECUW2), 7,6,-7,-8,6

· Thomas Keinath (NYAC) d. Lu Ying (ECUW2), 1,8,-9,-8,2

· David Zhuang (NYAC) d. Cui Chenwei (ECUW2), -8,9,10,8

· Thomas Keinath (NYAC) d. Cai Shanshan (ECUW2), 7,6,10

· Cui Chenwei (ECUW2) d. Gao Yan Jun (NYAC), 4,5,-11,6

· Lu Ying (ECUW2) d. David Zhuang (NYAC), -8,9,-10,9,9

· Thomas Keinath (NYAC) d. Cui Chenwei (ECUW2), 7,5,3

Peking University d. Canada One, 5-3

· Liang Geliang (PU) d. Bence Csaba (CAN), -10,3,4,8

· Ding Ying (PU) d. Pradeeban Peter-Paul (CAN), -12,-5,3,4,15

· Wilson Zhang (CAN) d. Gao Xi (PU), 7,9,4

· Ding Ying (PU) d. Bence Csaba (CAN), 9,-6,9,4

· Wilson Zhang (CAN) d. Liang Geliang (PU), 10,9,9

· Gao Xi (PU) d. Pradeeban Peter-Paul (CAN), 6,5,5

· Wilson Zhang (CAN) d. Ding Ying (PU), -9,8,7,7

· Gao Xi (PU) d. Bence Csaba (CAN), -5,9,5,6

East China University Women 1 d. Texas Wesleyan University, 5-4

· Yu Jingwei (ECUW1) d. Yang Shigang (TWU), -8,9,7,5

· Liu Juan (ECUW1) d. Ludovic Gombos (TWU), 8,9,8

· Mark Hazinski (TWU) d. Dai Ningyang (ECUW1), 8,10,-14,-8,10

· Liu Juang (ECUW1) d. Yang Shigang (TWU), 8,-9,-4,10,11

· Mark Hazinski (TWU) d. Yu Jingwei (ECUW1), 6,9,5

· Ludovic Gombos (TWU) d. Dai Ningyang (ECUW1), -4,6,9,11

· Mark Hazinski (TWU) d. Liu Juan (ECUW1), -8,9,-6,5,9

· Dai Ningyang (ECUW1) d. Yang Shigang (TWU), 10,10,5

· Yu Jingwei (ECUW1) d. Ludovic Gombos (TWU), -6,6,-9,5,5

East China University Men d. Israel, 5-1

· Zhai Yibo (ECUM) d. Ron Davidovitz (ISR), 3,6,4

· Yang Gan (ECUM) d. Sharon Yaniv (ISR), 5,10,6

· Xiao Han (ECUM) d. Izzak Abramov (ISR), 0,4,8

· Yang Gan (ECUM) d. Ron Davidovitz (ISR), 8,-9,5,5

· Izzak Abramov (ISR) d. Zhai Yibo (ECUM), -7,9,-6,9,9

· Xiao Han (ECUM) d. Sharon Yaniv (ISR), 0,6,9

Division 2: Peking University (Alex Li, Wang Ye, Shi Shengnan, Lv Jiahui) d. East China University Boys (He Hao, Meng Zhiyu, Justin Yao), 5-4.

Division 3: California J Leaguers (Yuichiro Yabuki, Takennori Yamazaki, Masato Kawamura, Yasuyuki Takano, Takayasu Nakata) d. americantabletennis.com (Eric Finkelstein, Scott Endicott, Alden Fan, Augusto Bertone, Douglas Yi Li), 5-0.

Division 4: Attache Ta Tuk (Remi Tremblay, Pierre-Luc Theriault, Maxime Suprenant, Francois Seguin-Leblanc) d. Swedish Chefs (Ivan Popov, Kagin Lee, Aaron Avery), 5-2.

Division 5: Eat, Sleep and Play Butterfly (Brana Vlasic, Barbara Wei, Olena Sowers) d. Wave Men (Tan Khoon-Hong, Jack Lam, Wayne Ming Chin), 5-2.

Division 6: CDK Loopers (Lixin Lang, Charlie Sun, Devin Zhang, Kevin Ma) d. Alaskan Assassins (Jorg Heger, Haitham Salman, Andrew Hutzel, Karl Augestad), 5-2.

Division 7: The Challengers (Rondell Jordan, Kevin Kuznetzow, Wesley Fan, Attila Mandler) d. The Triple Threat (David Jacques, Jordan Bishop, Roxanne Deslauriers), 5-4.

Division 8: Hidalgo Mexico (Jorge Navarro, David Navarro, Luis Fernando Chong Alvarado, Ruben Moedano) d. Albergue Olimpico 1 (Manuel Adorno Caraballo, Marcos Casiano Santiago, Alexander Citron, Anthony Rivera, Walvic Rodriguez), 5-2.

Division 9: Long Islanders (Eric Stamp, Daniel Flores, Benjamin Liu, Kent Tillinghast) d. MATTC Raiders 1 (Shaobo Zhu, Donald Vastine, John Kozak, Andrew Axmacher, Steve Givson), 5-2.

Division 10: Boston Juniors (Ari Stoler, Grant Li, Brian Jin) d. The Spinsters (Mike Jovanov, Daniel Eisenkraft Klein, Kevin Jovanov), 5-3.

Division 11: JHU Haughty Hotties 1 (Di Kang, Rohit Dewan, Frank Lee, Shin-Wei (David) Chiou, Norm Zhou) d. WhiteStar (John Chen, Vanial Rema, Xin Jia, Herren Wu), 5-1.

Division 12: Don’t Let Our Age Fool U (Jeff Schiff, Christopher Brewer, Jim Willitts) d. Newgy Florida #4 (Barbara Ruggio, William Miao, Malcolm Ah Kun), def.

Division 13: 1^st Hammer Of Thor (Thomas J. Huff, Tim Snyder, C. James Williams, Alan Bruce Williams, Raymond Kemp); 2^nd Ponce Lions (Manuel Gomez Jr., Xionel Feliciano, Luis Echevarria, Brandon Echevarria, Esteban Torres).

Division 14: 1^st Maryland Tigers (Gabriel Lu, Tong Tong Gong, Jackson Liang, George Nie, Alan Lang); 2^nd The Decepticons (Paul R.Nunez, Marcos Makkar, Robert Abrameto, Richard Shore).

Highest Over 40: Vietnam Men’s Team (Khoa Nguyen, John Tran Thach, Tuan Le, Tung Phan).

Highest Women: East China University Women’s Team 1 (Liu Juan, Dai NingyangYu Jingwei).

Highest Under 18 Boys: East China University Boys (He Hao, Meng Zhiyu, Justin Yao).

Highest Under 18 Girls: East China University Girls (Yu Hua, Ma Yufei, Wang Xueling).