2003 NORTH AMERICAN TABLE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Balboa Park Activity Center, San Diego, California, USA, April 4-6, 2003

North American Championships: Day Two

USA's Whitney Ping rips a backhand loop. Photo by Sungill Kim ©2003.

Saturday, April 5

By Kathy Chin

USA's Jackie Lee. Photo by Sungill Kim ©2003.

Table Tennis fans saw lots of excellent competition during Day Two of the North American Championships in San Diego.

No team could get any more than 7 points against the dynamic duo of Adam Hugh and John Leach in the Cadet Boy’s doubles.

Canada's Bence Csaba. Photo by Sungill Kim ©2003.

Judy Hugh and Laura Xiao had a much tougher time of it. Down two games to zero in the final against Canada’s Betty Tam and Shirley Yan, the Americans came alive in the 3^rd game. Canada had match point in the 4^th, but Hugh and Xiao fought back to win that game and the last to win the title, -8,-5,8,10,5.

Canada’s number 5 woman, Wennin Chiu, and Sara Yuen, won Junior Girls' doubles, beating fellow Canadians Anna Ngan and Stephanie Yuen 3-0 in the final, 8,8,2.

After beating USA's Jackie Lee and Whitney Ping in the Women’s doubles semi’s, Canada’s top-rated woman in this tournament, Petra Cada and Marie-Christine Roussy, met and beat USA's Tawny Banh and Lily Yip 3-1 in the final, 5,-9,6,3.

USA Junior Stars Han Xiao and Mark Hazinski. Photos by Sungill Kim ©2003.

Some excellent qualifying-round matches including a 5-game humdinger between John Leach and Misha Kazantsev…it went 18-16 in the 5th, with Leach pulling off the upset, -12,8,-6,13,16!

Another deuce-in-the-5^th match took place between De Tran and Canada’s Guo Peng in the Men's Singles preliminaries. Tran went up 7-3 in the 5^th, but Peng didn’t panic, he made some adjustments, kept focused, and came back to win 13-11. Tran refused to use the excuse that he’d had to sit in an airplane for 7 hours on a Chicago runway!

Play continues tomorrow with fans anxiously awaiting a look at Canada’s premiere player Johnny Huang. You can bet those camcorders will be rolling!!!

	USA Junior Boys' Team:  Coach Dan Seemiller, Mark Hazinski,  Han Xiao, Misha Kazentsev.  Photo by Sungill Kim ©2003. (Click on photo for larger version.)
	USA Junior Girls' Team:  Sophia Dan Dan Yi, Katherine Wu,  Whitney Ping, Jackie Lee,  Coach Doru Gheorghe.  Photo by Sungill Kim ©2003. (Click on photo for larger version.)

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