$92,000
U.S. Open
By Larry Hodges
Day two – or day one of the U.S. Open/ITTF Pro Tour (the day before only had a four-player round robin as part of the North American Championships) went smoothly and right on time.
The Multiplicity of Park Kyung Ae
Korea’s Park Kyung Ae is a well-known star, ranked 85th in the world (in new rankings just out). When she was entered, she was seeded out of the qualifier, as is due to someone of her ranking … only, she wasn’t one of that ranking! It turns out there are two Park Kyung Ae’s - Korea neglected to anyone that the Park entered was not the Park ranked 85th in the world! According to ITTF Pro Tour Director Zlatko Cordas, this is the first time this has ever happened in the Pro Tour.
According to Tim Boggan, this happened in golf as well. How did they handle it? The two Gordon Brand’s – who are not related – are called Gordon Brand Sr. and Jr., which is somewhat confusing to those who think they must be father and son.
In … Out … In … The Trials and Tribulations of Wang Chen
Wang Chen, the former World #4 woman from China now living in New Jersey, had her ins and outs. China protested her being in the draw, saying she was suspended from play in China for breaking some sort of contract. ITTF rules say that if an association suspends a player, that player is suspended from ITTF tournaments. As a result, Wang Chen was defaulted out of the tournament. HOWEVER … the rules also states that the suspension must be announced in a letter to the ITTF, and published. This hadn’t happened yet –so Wang was undefaulted, and allowed to play. She quickly won her three qualifier matches (she no longer has a world ranking, and so was unseeded) and is now in the main draw.
52 men were entered in the Qualifier, placed in 13 groups of 4. (Five didn’t show.) The 13 #1 finishers would all advance to the main draw, along with three #2 players, who would be selected at random, to fill out the main draw.
For those interested in USA results, there are USA players in every group except groups 2 and 8. Especially see group 12 to read of the many match points of USA’s 16-year-old Mark Hazinski – and the final conversion of one! – in the most contested group.
Group One: World #109 Finn Tugwell of Denmark easily advanced, winning all three matches 2-0. His only close match was with USA’s Michael Oyebode, a former member of the Nigerian team, now living in Atlanta. Tugwell won that match at 20 & 19.
Group Two: World #110 Michel Martinez of France advanced with 3-0 record, losing a game to Greece’s Konstantinos Lagogiannis, world #397.
Group Three: USA’s Fan Yiyong, with no world ranking (he’ll get one now!) dominated the group, winning his three matches by scores of 11,13,14,8,17,11, against players ranked (respectively) 434, 395 and 121. The poor opposition probably never knew what they were up against!
Group Four: While Japan’s Muneaki Mitamura (world #124) easily won his three matches all 2-0, USA’s Abass Ekun (world #388) came in second. His most difficult win was over unranked Elis Rondon of Venezuela, 14,-19,18. So Abass has a 3 in 13 chance of being one of the lucky second-place finishers chosen randomly to fill out the draw – yes, a 23.1% chance! (Unfortunately, he’s the only USA man with a chance to advance – but Mark Hazinski, as you’ll read shortly, came sooo close….)
Breaking news – Abass was one of the three selected, and so has advanced into the main draw!
Group Five: World #133 Gareth Herbert of England dominated this group, winning two matches at 15 & 14 and 8 & 7. His other match was with USA’s Barney J. Reed, who defaulted out of the event due to illness.
Group Six: World #142 Robert Gardos of Austria won all three matches, but had to struggle with USA’s Jim Butler. Jim, showing signs of his old form at times, came up 12,-14,11 short, and finished third (with a default from no-show Arturo Shiu of Panama). His other loss was to one of Canada’s junior phenoms, Bence Csaba, 11 & 14.
Group Seven: World #143 Panagiotis Gionis of Greece completely dominated the group, winning by scores of 12, 16, 9, 10, 6, 16. USA’s Ashu Jain lost his first two matches (to Gionis, 6 & 16, and to Canada’s Pradeeban Peter-Paul (world #305), 16 & 12. For unknown reasons, he defaulted his last match, to unranked Estuardo Wer of Guam.
Group Eight: Karl Jindrak of Austria, better known as one half of the Werner Schlager/Jindrak doubles team that challenges any team in the world, is only ranked #153 in singles. However, that was sufficient to win all three matches – including a default from Wang Fei of China (now living in New York City), who apparently was injured.
Group Nine: World #169 Stefan Feth of Germany advanced at 3-0. USA’s Brian Pace, after his heroics the day before in the North American Qualifiers (where he went 3-0), cooled down considerably, losing both matches badly – to Feth at 9 & 9, and to India’s Saha Subhajit (world #298) at 12 & 10. Perhaps his mind was still on the North Americans? He received a default in his final match.
Group Ten: This group came down to a showdown between World #177 Terry Young of England, and unranked Yang Hee Suk of Korea, with Yang winning, -15,11,18. USA’s Santiago Gabriel (actually from Puerto Rico) lost all three matches.
Group Eleven: World #177 Cedric Mirault of France dominated, although he lost a game to Korea’s unranked Kim Seung Hwan, 18,-16,14. USA’s Razvan Cretu played well, winning a game against Hwan (16,-18,13), losing to Mirault (13 & 14) and to world #239 Marc Closset of Belgium, 12 & 20.
Group Twelve: This was by far the most contested group, with all four players (including USA’s 16-year-old star Mark Hazinski) roughly equal. At the start, most feared China’s unranked Guo Keli would dominate – until he lost his first match, to world #229 Raymond Gonzales of Norway, at -12, 17, 11.
In the same round, Mark played world #189 Kunihiko Tasei of Japan, a pips-out penholder. Down 9-16 in the third, Mark went on an 11-2 binge, and served with a 20-18 match point lead! But Tasei deuced it. At 20-21 match point for Tasei, they played a furious point, with each hitting over ten counters or loops – and Mark’s continuous power loops finally deuced it, 21-all. Then Mark made a strong opening loop – and Tasei blocked on the edge! A moment later, it was match to Tasei, 17,-11,21.
In the second round, Mark played Gonzales. He won the first at 16, but was down 12-16 in the second – and then scored eight in a row! Down 20-16 match point, Gonzales scored four in a row – was Mark about to blow another match after multiple match points? Not this time; pulled it out, 23-21. While this match was going on, Guo was busy beating Tasei, deuce in the third!
At this point, all four are 1-1, so anyone can win. However, in the last round, Mark falls to China’s Guo, 16 & 6, while Tasei defeats Gonzales, 12,-10,12. Tasei and Guo both finish 2-1, with Guo coming out first due to his head-to-head win over Tawei.
One side result - Mark defeated a world-ranked player at the recent World Championships, so this is his second one. To get a world ranking, you have to beat two world-ranked players - so Mark will have a world ranking as soon as this tournament is processed.
Group Thirteen: World #193 Mads Sorensen of Denmark dominated, winning his three matches by scores of 14, 22, 17, 19, 17, 9. USA’s Keith Alban, not really in practice since going into semi-retirement a year ago, lost all three badly.
27 women were entered in the Qualifier, placed in six groups of four and one of three.. (three didn’t show.) The top two finishers in each group would all advance to the main draw, along with two #3 players, who would be selected at random, to fill out the main draw.
USA players were in six of the seven groups, all but group four (with two USAers in group five).
It was a bad time to be top seed – only one of the seven top seeds finished first. In fact, of the seven #1 seeds, one finished first; three finished second; two finished third; and one finished fourth.
Group One: World #201 Pia Finnemann of Denmark won both her matches easily (11&14 and 11&9), and received a default from USA’s Angela Sun. She would be the only #1 seed to win her group. Coming in second and advancing was Ruth Alvarez of Guam.
Group Two: First she’s in … then she’s out (and marked so on the draws and online) … then she’s back in again! But all this controversy didn’t affect her play – Wang Chen (listed as USA) dominated her group by scores of 11 & 12 and 7 & 11. Top-seeded Natalia Tzygankova of Belarus (world #202) was a no show. Also advancing in second was Mariana Guanchez of Venezuela.
Group Three: In this group of three, Korea’s unranked Kim Bok Rae dominated, defeating USA’s Virginia Sung (the group’s top seed at world #202 – tied with Tzygankova above) at 11 & 8. However, Virginia defeated second-seeded N.R. Indu of India (world #338) at 8 & 16, and so advanced along with Kim.
Group Four: Another unranked Korean, Yoon Ji Hye, won all three matches in straight games without being seriously challenged. Coming in second and advancing was India’s Poulomi Ghatak (world #217).
Group Five: For some reason, this group had two USA players (top-seeded world #224 Simone Yang and #4 seed Mimi Bosika), while group four had none. The group also had the strangest results. For one thing, only two matches were played. Second-seeded Annadiha Chakraborty of India (world #297) didn’t show, and for some reason Simone defaulted to Mimi. So the only matches played were between China’s unranked Fu Yu and the USA players. Fu defeated Mimi at 18 & 13, and Simone at 13 & 15. Yet, Mimi, losing her only match, came in second and advanced, while Simone, also losing her only match, came in third, and is in the running to advance as one of the wild cards.
Group Six: With one close game and five one-sided wins, China’s unranked Jia Beibie easily won her three matches. In the original results, Barbados/USA's Kibibi Moseley was listed as defeating top-seeded Mantu Ghosh of India (world #250) at 14 & 13. It ended in a three-way tie for second (between Kibibi, Ghosh and Luisana Perez of Peru, world #308), going to points - with Kibibi coming out! She was placed in the draw, and Ghosh was listed as coming in last in the group. However, after the women's draw was made, it was discovered that it was all an error - Ghosh had won! So Ghosh finished second, and Kibibi, going 0-3, came in fourth. Ghosh was placed in the main women's draw in place of Kibibi.
Group Seven: Another unranked Chinese player, Li Qiangbing, won both her matches easily to advance in first. She received a default from USA’s Mahin Roufeh, who lost her first match to top-seeded Fabiola Ramos of Venezuela (world #251), but for reasons unknown, defaulted the other two matches. Coming in second and advancing was Canada’s junior star Marie-Christie Roussy – who plays with the "Seemiller" (windshield wiper?) grip.
20 teams were put in a single elimination draw, with the eight quarterfinalists to advance to the main doubles draw. Originally, USA's Fan Yiyong was teamed with Canada's Johnny Huang, and Yugoslavia's Ilija Lupulesku (who is living in the U.S., but is listed as YUG by the ITTF) was with Fei Wang, the Chinese player living in the U.S. and now listed as USA. (Are you getting all this? We'll add that Lupulesku was at one point also playing with USA's Jim Butler, but Jim withdrew.) Wang Fei withdrew due to injury, and Huang decided not to play the doubles, so even though the doubles draw was made, Fan and Lupulesku were allowed to team up together. The two coasted through the qualifier - not hard, since they were seeded with a bye, and only had to play one match, defeating Omar Flores/Alejandro Oviedo of Guam, at 12 & 16. See the Men's Doubles Qualifier for other results.
Hardbat Doubles – Ty Hoff and Larry Hodges (this writer) won their third straight U.S. Open Doubles titles (to go along with two U.S. Nationals Doubles titles in three years), but this was the toughest ever. Against chopper Steve Berger and all-rounder Tahl Leibovitz, it was tough to get a rhythm. Hodges/Hoff led all through the first game, but barely pulled it out in the end, 21-19. In the second, Berger/Leibovitz began to mix play up more, and pulled away at the end to win 21-17. In the third, Hodges/Hoff started to romp to victory, leading 9-2 and 17-13. Then, suddenly, it was 19-all, and this writer was wondering what had become of his "famous" forehand that was suddenly no hitting? No matter – a forehand drive on the edge gave Hodges/Hoff the ad, and the won the third, 21-19. (Afterwards, Ty and Steve gave a hardbat clinic to introduce hardbat techniques to the masses, or at least ten or so.)
Over 75 – Last year, Grady Gordon won Over 70 Singles & Doubles. He started off fast again, winning Over 75 easily at 7 & 6 over Helios Bezerra.
Over
70 Doubles Champions Leon Ruderman and Tim Boggan. Copyright 2001 by Larry
Hodges
Over 70 Doubles –Tim Boggan and Leon Ruderman, silver medalists in this event at the World Veteran Games, won out over Stanly Kahan and Walter Witkowski, 5 & 16.
Ratings Doubles - Former USATT President Jim McQueen teamed with fellow North Caroliner Gregg Robertshaw to pull out a close 20, 21 win over Haynes/Wang in the Under 4200 Doubles final. The round before, they had defeated the mother/daughter team of past, present and up-and-coming stars Lily Yip and Judy Hugh (age 12), at –19, 18, 14. Newton/Thomas defeated Indiana’s junior stars Andrew Cochran/John Leach in the Under 3700 Doubles final. Luydmila Vysotskaya and Gary Gudzenko won Under 3200 Doubles over Dan Theuber and Jim Turner.
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