2003 U.S. Team Trials

Whitney Ping is still stuck in Denver, where an incredible seven feet of snow (!) has fallen, essentially closing down the state. Seven feet - that's nine inches taller than the 6'3" Mark Hazinski, the tallest player here at the Trials!

Priscilla Umel, who would have received a default from Whitney Ping in their scheduled match this morning, and wouldn't have played a match until 2:45 PM, showed up in the morning wearing "inappropriate attire." (A track suit with the words "Hottie" on the backside.) When asked to change, she refused and had words with the referee, and was defaulted out of the tournament for "inappropriate and foul language." Her results (as well as Ping's) will no longer count in the Trials. Since Umel was 0-3, this will not greatly affect the results.

The rest of the results this round were rather one-sided. Gao and Reed both won their fourth consecutive 4-0 match, and among those losing, only Simone Yang won a game. Best match to watch was the smooth looping of Jasna Reed versus the smooth chopping of Virginia Sung, but Reed won all of the close points in winning 5,9,9,5.

Men

Hazinski completely dominated his match with Owens, looping almost at will, and blocking Owens' loops back effortlessly. "My looping and blocking felt good," Hazinski verified.

Ashu Jain, at 1-1 in games, led the third with David Zhuang 9-3 and 10-8 - but couldn't hold on. "Anything can happen in an 11-point game," Zhuang said afterwards, when asked if he thought he could come back when he was down 9-3. The last point of the game was spectacular - Jain absolutely ripped four smashes or loops in a row, but Zhuang blocked them all back, and Jain missed the fifth.

Lupulesku and Nguyen had an entertaining counterlooping match, but this is the type of match Lupi's played for years. Nguyen won the fourth, but Lupi went up 10-0 in the fifth before scoring three.

Rop's serve & receive game, and his continuous forehand looping, won out against Wang's athletic looping, 3,-9,8,4,5

Brian Pace and Shashin Shodhan had a wild match, with Pace coming back from down 2-1 to win the last three. Two of the games were 11-5; the other four were 11-4, so there were no close games. Of how he turned the match around, Pace said, "Early in the match, I was serving to his backhand, and he was angling his returns to my backhand, taking away my forehand. So I started serving more to his middle and forehand."

De Tran started out strong against Adam Hugh, winning the first two, but Hugh came back, winning the next three. Whoever attacked first won most of the points, even though both usually returned the other's first attack - but the first attacker had the initiative, and both were excellent at continuous attacks. In the last two games, Tran had the attack more often. Tran said, "Adam won those three games by returning my serves short. So I started playing closer to the table so I could attack those balls."

Current Standings
Note - the three matches played by Priscilla Umel no longer count in the standings, due to her default from the tournament, and so her losses to Reed, Kuye and Dubina have been taken out of the results.
Men			Women
1-2	Ilija Lupulesku	4-0	1	Chang Jun Gao	4-0
	David Zhuang	4-0	2-3	Jasna Reed	3-0
3-4	Khoa Nguyen	3-1		Tawny Banh	3-0
	Mark Hazinski	3-1	4	Judy Hugh	3-1
5-7	Eric Owens	2-2	5	Lily Yip	2-1
	Shashin Shodhan	2-2	6	Virginia Sung	2-2
	Adam Hugh	2-2	7	Jackie Lee	1-3
8-1	Ashu Jain	1-3	8-10	Moji Kuye	0-3
	Brian Pace	1-3		Simone Yang	0-3
	De Tran	1-3		Amanda Dubina	0-3
	Darko Rop	1-3
12	Jiachen Wang	0-4

2003 USA Table Tennis World and Pan Am Trials

Final Twelve - Round Four

Women

Men

Current Standings

Men

Women