Richmond, Canada • February 14-15, 2004
By Larry Hodges
Play is at the Sportsplex at McNeill Secondary School, with Joola tables, nets & barriers, and the red Gerflor floors. Two courts are used, normally one for men, one for women.
USA and Canada held national trials to get down to their final men and women. North America is allotted six Olympic singles spots from these Trials: three men and three women. Since USA's Gao Jun pre-qualified, there are only two spots available for USA women (and only two women are allowed to try out for the U.S.). So there are six men (3 USA, 3 Canadian) trying out for three men's spots, and five women (2 USA, 3 Canadian) trying out for three women's spots.
The umpires made it clear right from the start there they would be strict on the service rule, especially the rule about not hiding serves and getting the free arm out of the way during the serve. Right from the start players were getting warnings and service faults - and after a few rounds, the players pretty much had adjusted, and few faults were then called. There were a number of warnings even at the end, but knowing the umpires would call service faults, it only took one warning and the player made sure to pull the free arm out of the way the rest of the match.
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| Ilija Lupulesku (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
David Zhuang (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Khoa Nguyen (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Superficially, the two play similar. However, the two actually play quite different. Khoa is a conventional all-out two-winged attacker, able to loop a winner of almost anything - except against Lupi, where loop kills are routinely looped or fished back. Lupi has a very efficient attack, not as piercing as Khoa's, but very steady, with more topspin. However, his strengths are his off-table counterlooping and topspin defense (fishing). Many of the rallies featured Khoa ripping a "winner" after "winner," with all of the returned until finally Khoa would miss or Lupi would counterloop a winner.
The two spit the first two games, with Khoa getting hot in the second. (Khoa was faulted at 2-2 in the first game for not getting his arm out of the way when he served.) Lupi seemed to coast the next two games. Down 5-6 in the fifth, Khoa called a one-minute timeout - and when he came back, he was on fire, winning five in a row. In the sixth, Lupi coasted to a 10-4 match point lead. Then 10-5 ... 10-6 ... 10-7 ... 10-8 ... 10-9! Khoa, who had just served and ripped a winner (i.e. one that even Lupi couldn't fish back), served short, Lupi dropped the ball short, and Khoa flip-killed - into the net.
Petra, who had finished first at the Canadian Olympic Trials, towers over her opponents - she's easily over 6 feet tall. She is extremely steady in topspin rallies, seemingly able to counter back anything. She can hit or loop from both sides. Marie plays a somewhat unique style, using the "Seemiller" grip, where she uses only one side of the racket for hitting. She mostly uses inverted, but on the "non-used" side of her racket she has a sheet of antispin, and can flip the racket in the middle of a rally and use this dead surface as a change of pace, or to return serves short over the net. She plays a blocking game, but has a strong attack on the forehand side.
The two play vicious rallies, but it seemed no matter how hard Marie came at Petra, everything came back. While Marie seemed the aggressor most of the time, when Petra attacked, her attack was efficient and usually won the point. Three of the games were relatively close, but after the first game, Petra was in control.
Johnny Huang has the most "unique" style here, a shakehand hitter with short pips on both sides - and he's the top seed. His all-out hitting means all his matches turn into spectacular matches as opponents race to return his shots. At this level, he has to hit over and over to win the point - and often it's the opponent who's looping, with Huang hitting/blocking (sometimes it's hard to tell the difference with him) over and over. It was a seesaw match, with Bence able to loop from both wings against almost anything Johnny could throw at him, but Johnny able to hit all his loops. Bence has a spectacular backhand loop, and he often serve and backhand rips a winner, or near-winner.
In the first game, Johnny leads 5-1, 10-8, 11-10, 12-11 and 13-12 - but it's Bence who wins, 15-13. In the second, it's all Johnny. At 10-0, Johnny serves off, almost for certain on purpose against his teammate. But Bence comes back in the third, leads most of the way, then barely pulls it out from 9-9. However, Johnny dominates the last three games, often turning Bence into a Lupulesku-like off-table spinner, running ball after ball down, only to see Johnny smash again.
Once again we have this classic match-up of contrasting styles. Jasna plays very European style, looping and hitting from both wings with inverted, and often moving off the table. Tawny is more Asian style, with pips on the backhand, playing right up to the table, looping the forehand at the top of the bounce, and hitting backhands right off the bounce. It leads to bang-bang rallies. However, Jasna's looping and backhand hitting this match were unstoppable. Often Tawny's hardest-hit off-the-bounce backhands were backhand counter-killed by Jasna. When Jasna looped, she controlled the points. There was some excitement right at the end as Jasna led 10-7 - and Tawny got two net-dribblers in a row to get 10-9 (with Jasna giving a Dean-like primal scream at the second one).
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| Johnny Huang (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Pradeeban Peter-Paul (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Bence Csaba (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Khoa won the first, but things started going wrong in the second game, when his serve was faulted on the second point. "No warning?" he asked the umpire. "No warning - the serve was clearly illegal," replied the umpire. (Khoa's arm was in front when he served.) David won the that game and the next. As the match went on, however, Khoa gradually stopped trying to force his forehand (his strength), and more and more stayed in position, looping steady backhands. The strategy worked, but it was a battle. In the sixth game, Khoa led 5-4, but after David called a timeout, David got three in a row to lead 7-5. Khoa then goes up 8-7 in this seesaw match, mostly be backhand looping over and over and over. When Khoa misses a forehand loop (8-all) David yells, "YAH!!!" (In contrast to Khoa, who throughout the match, when he scores points, says under his breath, "that's it" (small letters). At 9-all, Khoa loops in David's serve to get match point #1 ("that's it"). But he backhands David's next serve off, a net-ticker that just goes long ("YAH!!!"). Khoa serve and forehand loops, follows with a backhand loop, and David blocks off ("that's it"), as Khoa gets match point #2, 11-10. David serve and loops - and Khoa quick blocks a winner to the wide forehand. ("that's it.").
Marie is at a disadvantage here as she rarely gets to use her strength, her backhand blocking, against Chris, a chopper with long pips on the backhand. The two play long, patient rallies, often pushing many balls before one attacks. Marie's attack is usually a soft opening, and she usually doesn't follow it up, usually pushing unless the return is high - and when it's high, she's too erratic, missing too many loops and especially too many smashes. When Chris attacks, she almost always wins the point as she only attacks against weak balls.
(Women have bye)
These two play very similar, with Bence having a bit more power, Pradi a bit more consistency. Pradi seems to get the first attack more often, but is often faced with Bence's vicious counterloops. Bence also has a more ferocious backhand loop, but doesn't seem to use it as much as usual this match, usually looping on the forehand, punch-blocking Pradi's loops with his backhand. As the match went on, the rallies became better and better, until by the end nearly every rally was turning into all-out counterlooping, sometimes power to power, other times one on the defensive, the other ripping over and over, with the two "roles" often switching several times during a rally.
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| Jasna Reed (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Tawny Banh (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
David dominated the first two games with his blocking and hitting, but starting in the third game, Lupi's looping took control. Two key comeback-stopping points: Down 8-10 in the the fourth, and down 7-10 in the sixth (after being down 3-9), David has Lupi lobbing, both times does a drop shot, both times Lupi tosses the ball up - and both times David misses the easy smash. in the last two games, Lupi often seemed unstoppable.
Petra plays very patiently against Chris's chopping, with a mixture of forehand and backhand pushes, rolls and sudden smashes, rarely looping with much spin or speed. She jumps to a 7-1 lead in game one, winning 11-5. The two seem to take turns winning easily in the first five games, as the scores show. Chris barely wins game six, leading 9-7, then 9-all, before (both times after very long pushing rallies), Petra loops softly off, then pushes off. It was a LOOoooooong match (it seemed like it should have gone expedite very early - the referee said it just missed doing so several times), with lots of pushing - as the match went on, the pushing rallies became longer as Petra would wait longer and longer before attacking. (About two and a half matches were played on the next table during this one match.) At 6-6 in the seventh, the match went expedite - from here on, the players alternate serves, and the server has 13 shots to win the point, or the receiver wins the point. In the end, Petra's patience and sudden forehand smashes at expedite won out as she outscored Chris 5-1 after expedite was called.
(Women have bye)
Johnny's attack and quickness were just too much, as he had Pradi running all over the court. Pradi kept two of the games close, mostly by efficiently following up his serve (especially an inside-out forehand pendulum serve to Johnny's backhand) with strong loops, but it wasn't enough.
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| Petra Cada (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Chris Xu (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Marie-Christine Roussy (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
Pradi used the same inside-out forehand serve he'd used against Johnny Huang, and early on his forehand seemed invincible. Pradi went up 8-0 in the first. Up 10-2, he won 11-6. From here on, it was a battle. David didn't let Pradi tee off with his forehand so much after the first game, and often had Pradi off the table defensively spinning (and always watching for David's sudden drop shots), but Pradi's ability to stay in the points, and find chances to rip forehands, kept him in the match. Pradi won game three with a high, soft, spinny loop that David blocked off (in disbelief), and won when David pushed off. But David began to dominate in game four, winning the next two games.
Three of the four games were close, and every rally was vicious ... but Tawny's stronger forehand looping won in the end. Some of the backhand-backhand rallies, however, were ferocious.
Khoa had upset Johnny the last time they'd played, but few in the stands realized this. For the first four games, it was dead even; after that, Johnny's sheer speed began to dominate as he'd force Khoa off the table more and more, inevitably leading to a Johnny kill. Some of the points had to be seen to be believed; there was a point at 8-9 in the second (Khoa leading) where Khoa looped in the serve, Johnny smashed it, and without either player backing off, Khoa continued to loop, Johnny to smash, until finally Johnny missed one.
It's obvious Jasna knows how to play choppers. Against Chris, she basically alternated looping and pushing, rarely pushing or looping twice in a row, and kept working for that slightly high ball that she'd smash. She rarely gave Chris a chance to score, bringing her in and out, never over-attacking, never getting too passive (and letting Chris attack). She mostly played into Chris's (inverted) forehand. Jasna's favorite word this tournament, when she scores a point? It sounds like, "Sock!" Other times it's "Sooooo!" (rhymes with who).
(Women have bye)
Lupi's topspin fishing was at its best here as he fished Bence down over and over - in fact, it seemed like he was off the table over half the time, running down (successfully) almost everything Bence could throw at him. The Lefty Lupi could do no wrong this match as he picked Bence's game to pieces, both with topspin defense and by sudden looping attacks to the wide forehand that caught Bence over and over. When off the table topspin fishing, he's mix the spins up - light to heavy topspins, sometimes no-spin - and Bence was caught by this over and over. In fairness to Bence, Lupi developed his game in Europe where almost everyone plays like Bence, while Bence rarely gets to play someone who plays such topspin defense as Lupi's. (Pradi is close, but not quite the same.)
In the fourth game, Bence finally seemed to adjust to Lupi's game (ending points before Lupi could get comfortable off the table), and led 9-6. But Lupi won five straight points, the first three with loops to the wide forehand.
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