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2001 U.S. Team Trials
Las Vegas, Nevada • December 18-23, 2001

Day Three: USA Nationals

By Larry Hodges

Men’s Singles

One round of Men’s Singles was played, bringing the total number of players down to 32. Interesting matches:

Randy Cohen, rated 2384, barely defeated Rick Seiler, rated 2038, at 5,7,-9,-10,9.
Scott Preiss, rated 2169, upset 13-year-old Misha Kazantsev, whose rating after the North American Teams had jumped to 2407, at -9,7,4,-11,9.
Lee McCool’s ultra-close win over Rudy Miranda, rated 2307 and 2176 respectively, at scores of 8,-9,-6,7,14!

Men’s Doubles

This was where much of the action was, as the event was played to the final. Interesting matches:

Second-seeded Cheng Yinghua/Sean Lonergan lost in the quarterfinals to Barney J. Reed/Lee McCool, 6,7,-6,5.
Sean O’Neill/Brian Pace pulled of a great comeback to defeat Reed/McCool in the semifinals, coming back from losing the first two games, and pulling out three straight 11-9 games: -6,-7,9,9,9.
On the top half, top-seeded David Zhuang/Eric Owens coasted to the final, losing only one game, to Nison Aronov/Tahl Leibovitz in the semifinals, 7,7,-12,4.

Women’s Singles

One round of Women’s Singles was played, bringing the total number of players down to 16. There were no upsets, other than 1045-rated Pamela Jeffcoat’s 5-3 win over 1333-rated Dorothy Irving. The top eleven seeds all had byes.

Women’s Doubles

There were only a disappointing three teams. Tawny Banh/Simone Yang defeated mother/daughter Lily Yip/Judy Hugh in the semifinal, 5,-7,8,7. Chang Jun Gao/Jasna Reed were seeded into the final, which will be played later.

Over 40 Men

Barry Dattel and Rudy Miranda had a very spirited and close Over 40 Men's Final, with Barry just pulling out the last point (see picture with score), 3,-8,7,9. Rudy took out defending champion Avishy Schmidt in the semifinals, 8,8,12, while Barry took out second-seeded Attila Malek in the other semifinals by def. Top-seeded Cheng Yinghua dropped out due to exhaustion from the USA Team Trials, to save himself for men’s singles.

Over 40 Women

Charlene Liu, who has won this title a couple of times, won again, this time over Yevgeniya Kotlerman, 8,7,5. Charlene comes from a family that plays table tennis – she was over 2000 recently, and her husband and 18-year-old son, Changping and James Duan, have matching ratings of 2121. But Charlene’s one-up on them so far.

Over 75

Grady Gordon wins – what else is new? When rival George Hendry isn’t here (he wasn’t), it’s always Grady. However … having said this … it almost wasn’t Grady! Frank Dwelly staged a great comeback before losing the final, 8,9,-9,-6,8.

Under 22 Men

In a draw dominated by junior players (under 18, often under 14), top-seeded Mark Hazinski, 17, defeated 13-year-old Adam Hugh in the final, 11,7,-10,6. In the semifinals, Hazinski had received a default for unknown reasons from Lee McCool, while Adam defeated Puerto Rico’s star 16-year-old, Santiago Coste, at 11,5,8. The quarters were also mostly top juniors – Hazinski over 13-year-old Misha Kazantsev (5,-7,4,4), McCool over 17-year-old Samson Dubina (9,6,5), Adam over 18-year-old David Umel Jr., and Santiago over 17-year-old Jared Lynch, -7,4,12,6.

Under 2400 Final

Adam Hugh, who in ratings after the North American Teams (not used for this tournament) is 2404, proved it was no fluke, winning this event over Randy Cohen, 7,-11,-8,4,5. Most interesting stat in the draw was the five-game journeys of USATT Board Member Hank McCoullum: in the 32nds, he defeated Ramin Samari, 8,9,-3,-8,6; in the 16ths, he came back from down 2-0 to defeat Jacob Deleon, -5,-6,4,5,5; in the 8ths, he defeated Tri Dinh, -10,5,9,7,9 (computer didn’t show which other game he lost); in the quarterfinals, he upset Lee McCool in his second straight 9 in the fifth match, -9,7,-10,11,9; and in the semifinals he … lost (from up 2-1) to Randy Cohen, -6,8,-9,2,7. That’s five straight five-gamers, two 9 in the fifth, and one from down 0-2! So … Hank … how’s the heart?

Adam didn’t have a joyride either in the semifinals, defeating Jackie Lee at 5,-18 (!),8,9.

Under 2300

Tahl Leibovitz, playing very well recently – his rating after the North American Teams was 2424, but in the older ratings used he was 2293 – won the event over Ramin Samari, 5,9,-8,6. Tahl had a struggle in the 8ths, where he defeated Shuja Jafar-Ali at 7,9,-6,-8,8.

Under 2000

Fernando Cordero won the final over Michael Amren, 6,8,8. He had to struggles in getting there: in the semis, where he defeated Messan Lawson at –5,4,-6,5,8; and in the 16ths, where he defeated Amir Hormozi, 4,-8,3,-7,8. Amren also had a battle, in the quarterfinals, where he defeated Michael Lazarev at –4,6,-8,9,6.

Under 1400

Alex Kotlyar, winning his 8ths match at 9 in the fifth against Dan Thompson, and losing the first game in the quarters, semis and final, won the event despite being in perpetual comeback mode, over Andrew Knips in the final, -7,6,10,10.

Over 40 Hardbat

How do you write up an event that you won? Suffice to say that the hard-hitting Larry Hodges (this writer) overcame chopper and top-seed Steve Berger in the final, 10,6,7. Steve is the defending national champion in the open division, which starts tomorrow. In the semifinals, Steve defeated Randy Hou, 3,-9,2,8; Hodges defeated Ray Mack, 3,7,10. Ray had had a quarterfinal battle with Tim Boggan, and overcame two match points to win! Fourth seed Marty Reisman, former Men’s Singles (1958 and 1960) and hardbat champion (1997) was late for his match, and was defaulted. He was seeded to play Steve in the semifinals.

A short technical analysis might be of interest. If Steve just chopped balls back, he wouldn’t be rated over 2300 (that’s with a hardbat against sponge players), and he wouldn’t be the defending national hardbat champion. When he chops, he uses a motion with a big wrist snap, but sometimes gives you heavy backspin, sometimes very light backspin. By mixing this up, and putting the ball mostly to the middle of the table (taking away the long diagonal angles), it’s very difficult to find a ball to hit past him. (And he brings most of those back as well.) For this hitter, the key was to either serve & smash, since it’s harder for Steve to mix the spin up and keep the ball down when up against a varied spin; or to play a very patient rolling game, with lots and lots of light topspin balls. The goal here is to go on until either he pops one up (rare), or until you see the spin on the ball early on, not easy against Steve’s variations. When you see a ball that you can read the spin early, you have to go for that shot. If they hit, you have a good chance to win. If they don’t, you’ll simply have to get better since Steve’s not going to give you many chances. The most difficult part is being able to judge if you’ve really read the spin, or if he’s fooled you into thinking you have.

Hardbat Doubles

Here we go again – how do you write up an event you win? To start with, you team up with the guy you played in the Over 40 Hardbat Final. However, this is a problem – Steve Berger’s a chopper, while Larry Hodges (again, this writer), while sometimes a chopper, is more of a hitter, and so the styles don’t always go together well. When Steve chops, the opponents attack, taking away Larry’s attack; when Larry attacks, and forces a weak ball, Steve often has to go against his instincts and force a follow-up attack. Facing them in the final were U.S. Team Member Ashu Jain and Tahl Leibovitz (one match away from making the U.S. Team last year), rated about 550 points higher in sponge ratings, both attackers, and fresh off from winning the North American Hardbat Doubles three weeks before, where they had won against Steve and Larry in the Final RR. However, with Steve mixing up the spins on his chops, and Larry pressuring them with his forehand and aggressive receives, Steve & Larry came back to win the last two easily, 11,-9,-9,4,4.

Under 2000 Hardbat

Bruce Liu and his all-out penhold attack defeated full-time hardbatter Ralph Stadelman and his more all-around chopping/hitting game to win the final, 6,10,-3,11.

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