2001 USA Table Tennis 
National Team Trials
San Diego, California
February 7-11, 2001

Day Five: Sunday, February 11

The Trials Come to an End

With all the possible scenarios, four of the five matches in the final round could have had an impact on who took the final spot on the U.S. Team. However, once Hazinski defeated Nison Aronov (14,9,-23,8), Ashu Jain had control of his fate: if he won his match against Barney J. Reed, he would get the final spot.

Jain led most the first game of this counterlooping duel, and won 21-18. He was blown out the second, 21-13. Reed led 19-15 in the third, but loses five straight (19-20) before calling a timeout. He deuced it, but Ashu got an edge at 20-20 to get game point. Barney rolled a ball off the end to lose it, 22-20. In game four, Ashu led 20-15 match point, Reed serving. Then 20-16 … 20-17 … 20-18 … 20-19! But then Reed serves and backhands weakly off the table - and the match is over. Or is it? Apparently Jain moved the table in returning the serve, and so instead of winning, it is deuce! There is no protest. Reed whiffs a backhand loop to go down match point, and Jain then wins on a net dribbler. Match to new USA Team Member, Ashu Jain, 18,-13,20,20.

However, this wasn’t the only drama going on. Brian Pace and Tahl Leibovitz were going at it, into the fifth, both having a chance to make the team until late in the fourth game, when the Jain-Reed match ended. But Pace slowly pulls away in the fifth, 14-11, 16-11, 17-13, 19-16, 21-16. This locked up the 6^th spot for Pace.

Shashin Shodhan, knowing he still had a chance to make the team via a 5-way tie (until Jain won), battled for five games with Loc Ngo, finally winning 17,-19,-14,13,16.

In a battle of the top two seeds, top seed David Zhuang ran off 7 straight at 5-5 all to run away with the first game – until Eric Owens tied it up at 19-all! But Zhuang won it, 21-19. Owens, playing his all-out looping game – looping from both sides – forced the match into the fifth. At 12-all – right where Zhuang often seems to pull away from others – Owens pulled away, winning five in a row to 17-12, and winning the upset match, -19,17,-17,12,14. Because Owens had lost to Hazinski 3-0, and Zhuang had defeated Hazinski 3-0, in the three-way tie between them, Zhuang came in first, Hazinski second, Owens third.

And so the U.S. Men’s Team was finalized, with the top five making the team:

1. David Zhuang 9-1
2. Mark Hazinski 9-1
3. Eric Owens 9-1
4. Barney J. Reed 6-4
5. Ashu Jain 5-5
6. Brian Pace 5-5
7. Shashin Shodhan 4-6
8. Nison Aronov 4-6
9. Tahl Leibovitz 3-7
10. Loc Ngo 1-9
11. Lee McCool 0-10

A special thanks goes to the many volunteers and sponsors of this tournament, who put in hundreds of hours of work in putting these trials together. Let’s all take a few minutes to honor not only our ten USA Team Members, but the staff that put on the Trials!

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