2000 North American Olympic Trials
   Rochester, NY • April 6-8, 2000

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Day Two: Friday, April 7
By Larry Hodges

Both the men and the women finished four of seven rounds today (including carry-over matches). Eight men and eight women are competing for three men’s and three women’s spots.

Today’s matches were all USA vs USA or Canada vs. Canada players. Tomorrow will be all USA vs. Canada matches.

On the men’s side, the most significant match was USA’s David Zhuang’s come-from-behind-twice win over USA’s Todd Sweeris. Sweeris led 2-1 in games, and was up 17-13 in the fourth (16-10 before that), 14-11 in the fifth. Both times Zhuang served, and both times he won all five on his serve. In the fourth game, at 18-all, Zhuang popped a ball up, Sweeris kill-looped, but Zhuang made a miracle block to win the point. Sweeris then missed his own serve (a fast down-the-line serve) to go down 18-20, and then missed a loop. Zhuang ended up winning the match, 13,-15,-12,18,18.

Other significant matches include Sweeris 3-1 win over Eric Owens (essentially knocking the 0-4 Owens out of the running), and Cheng Yinghua’s 3-0 wins over Zhuang and Owens. Cheng, 4-0, has nearly locked up a spot, while Zhuang is looking very strong since he is strongly favored in the rest of his matches.  The battle for the last spot on the men's side is more open.. Sweeris, 2-2, may need to sweep the Canadian team on Friday (three matches) to make the team. He’s already beaten Pradeeban Peter-Paul, and is probably favored in all three matches, with Kurt Liu probably the toughest match. Geng's 0-3 loss to Liu means that in a potential Geng-Liu-Sweeris tie, he would not come out. So the Sweeris-Liu match may be the most important match on Saturday.

Canada’s former Olympian, Horatio Pintea, 0-4, is essentially out of the running. Hai Tao Geng and Kurt Liu lead the Canadian team at 3-1.

On the women’s side, the most significant matches were a pair of five-game comeback wins by USA’s Lily Yip, over Tawny Banh and Virginia Sung. Down match point twice in the fifth, Yip defeated Banh at -15,17,-11,9,21 – with Banh getting one match point with an edge ball at 20-all. Down 2-1 in games, Yip defeated Sung at 17,-9,-12,19,9.

The only player still undefeated in the tournament is Cheng Yinghua. On the men’s side, USA’s David Zhuang and Canada’s Kurt Liu and Hai Tao Geng are 3-1. On the women’s side, USA’s Jasna Reed and Lily Yip, and Canada’s Chris Xu are 3-1. These results are only USA vs. USA, and Canada vs. Canada, except for one preliminary carry-over match each. USA vs. Canada matches begin on Saturday.

For the final round of play today (Friday), the stands were packed with approximately 500 spectators. The Cheng-Zhuang match was the most crowd-pleasing match, with Zhuang especially hamming it up for the crowd at times.