Richmond, Canada • February 14-15, 2004
By Larry Hodges
Olympians! |
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| 1st Jasna Reed (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
2nd Tawny Banh (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
3rd Petra Cada (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
It was a well-run Trials, and a great thanks go to the Canadians and all the staff and officials for making it so. Matches went on time (except for a few times when previous rounds went very long - unavoidable). The playing conditions were excellent. The officials did what sometimes seems impossible these days - enforce the service rule. (It got rather ugly in the the final match when the crowd was screaming at the umpires for calling faults.) So congratulations to all.
The crowd (at its peak, about 500) is rather partisan, in favor of the hometown Canadians, but that's to be expected. You could keep score by listening to the crowd after each point.
For Day One, each set of two matches that went out (sometimes one, when the women had a bye) was listed as a "round." Today, with fewer matches, the matches are being played one at a time, so they will be simply listed in sequence. Also note that it was previously reported incorrectly that there were only two spots available for the women, but there are actually three.
Jasna was able to attack almost at will during this match - usually opening with a backhand loop - but it took her many shots to get past Marie's blocking. Many of the rallies were backhand-backhand, with Jasna pressing the attack, Marie backhand jab-blocking (and sometimes forehand hitting) with her Seemiller grip. In the last game, up 10-6, Jasna seemed to let up, playing lackadaisical, and lost three in a row before serve and backhand looping a winner.
Marie uses a unique "Seemiller" grip. Instead of curling the index finger and thumb around the racket, as most players with this grip do, she has both her index finger and thumb on the back of the racket for most shots (curling the index finger around the side of the racket when backhand pushing).
Right from the start, you could see the much shorter but quicker Tawny mostly going after the tall Petra's middle (the playing elbow, the transition between forehand and backhand). Tawny went after Petra's middle with her quick backhand hits (with pips-out sponge) and top-of-the-bounce loops. Petra can be a counterdriving wall from the corners, with a strong attack as well, but Tawny's strategy made this difficult.
Tawny won the first easily, and was up 10-6 in the second, Petra out-steadied Tawny for three rallies, but Tawny won game two on a serve & loop. In game three, Petra matched Tawny to 7-all, but Tawny won the last four. You could see that Petra was trying to find chances to attack, but Tawny over and over either attacked first, or counter-attacked, putting Petra on the defensive. In game four, Petra went up 3-0, but called a time-out after Tawny won the next five points. After the time-out, they had a series of furious rallies - with Petra scoring five in a row to lead 8-5. The pace of the rallies seem to increase here as Tawny continued to press the attack, but Petra countered stronger than before, and won game four, 11-9.
Tawny goes up 6-4 in the fifth. Petra slams a ball down and out of the court, and is yellow carded. Tawny wins another, goes up 7-4. But Petra now goes on a run, blocking and countering steadily against Tawny's all-out attack to win four in a row and lead 8-7. Tawny calls a timeout. After the time-out, Petra continues to out-rally Tawny, wins two more in a row to go up 10-7, and wins 11-8. And just like that, instead of a blowout, we have a match on our hands - and the somewhat partisan Canadian crowd is on their feet cheering.
In game six, Petra finds several balls early on to smash, but Tawny starts winning the long rallies, and goes up 7-4. But Petra turns it on, matching Tawny pace for pace for the next few rallies to tie it at 7-all. Then Tawny goes up 9-7, then 9-8, then 10-8 match point on an edge ball. Tawny serve & loops, but Petra blocks it back, and Tawny loops awkwardly off. Petra then wins a backhand-backhand exchange - and it's 10-all - and the crowd absolutely goes crazy! Petra blocks Tawny out of position and hits a winner to lead 11-10, but Tawny serve and rips a loop, 11-all. Tawny backhand hits Petra's serve off the end (a net-ticker) to go up 12-11. Petra dominates the next rally, has Tawny off the table, forced to chop - but Tawny counterloops a winner, 12-all. Tawny then wins a furious backhand exchange to lead 13-12, and serves for the match. Tawny serves, and loops a forehand ... and another ... and another ... and another ... and another ... and another ... and finally, after six forehand loops from all over the table, Tawny wins when Petra blocks off.
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| 4th Chris Xu (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
5th Marie-Christine
Roussy (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
This is the match that many have been waiting for - USA #1 versus Canadian #1. Johnny is favored, both with a higher world ranking and, according to conventional wisdom, a style advantage. Lupi's counterlooping and fishing is more effective against a looper, not a pure hitter (shakehands, with short pips on both sides) like Johnny. It's not really a meaningful match - both players are going to make the Olympic Team at this point. It doesn't matter. This is the highlight match of the Trials.
The lefty Lupi comes out strong in Game One, looping winners over and over, and leads 10-4. Johnny pulls to 7-10 (winning on a drop shot off Lupi's lob at 6-10), but pushes Lupi's serve off the side as Lupi wins game one, 11-7. However, Lupi's bleeding, has a cut on his right thigh (had he scraped it against the table?). There's a break while medics, with gloved hands, bandage it up, and play continues.
In Game Two, Lupi leads 9-7, then is down 9-10. He serve & loops to deuce it, 10-all, and then backhand loops a winner to get game point, 11-10. But Huang answers by flipping the serve on the edge, and then smashing a ball that hits the net and dribbles, unreturnably, over the net, to go up 12-11. Lupi holds up two fingers in disgust - two points on nets & edges. They play a great next point, which Johnny wins with a spectacular stretching, almost leaping-for-the-ball, backhand kill of a Lupi loop to win, 13-11. The two net/edge points ... instead of Lupi possibly up 2-0, it's dead even.
Game Three is all Johnny, 11-4, as he hits relentlessly. Lupi plays some great looping points, but too often is off the table fishing and lobbing.
Game Four is streaky: Lupi leads 5-1, 6-3, then it's 6-6; then Lupi leads 9-6, 10-7. At 10-8, they play a spectacular point with Lupi looping, Johnny hitting, with Johnny pulling to 10-9. But Lupi serve & loops two to win, 11-9.
Game Five is perhaps the most spectacular games - but there's no way to show that with the written word. It seemed that Johnny could smash anything Lupi looped, and Lupi could loop, fish or lob anything Johnny could smash. But Johnny was relentless, and won 11-6.
Game Six: Can Lupi force the seventh? He goes up 4-1, but then it's 5-5. Lupi keeps getting the lead, but Johnny ties it. 6-6. 7-7. Then Johnny mis-hits a ball that floats back crazily, and Lupi can't return it. The umpire gives Johnny the point, but Johnny says it hit his fingers, is a double-hit - so Lupi gets the point to lead 8-7. (Bravo to Johnny!) Lupi goes up 10-7, serves at 10-8. He serve & loops in the net, then serve & loops, and gets blocked out of position and misses a backhand. Lupi plays a great rally to get another ad, but Huang smashes out of a fast rally to get to 11-all. Then it ends quickly - Lupi pushes a serve into the net, and serve & backhand loops off. Johnny has won the match, but the crowd cheers both for the Match of the Trials.
The two play similar two-winged looping games, but Khoa is a bit more relentless on the attack, not backing off the table too much even when counterlooping, while Pradi will back up more. Both favor the forehand, but Pradi probably tries to force it more. Khoa serves with a conventional forehand pendulum serve, while Pradi almost always serves with a reverse forehand pendulum serve (so at contact, his racket is moving away from him).
Khoa fell behind in the first, 2-5 - and then, with a blistering looping attack (and overcoming Pradi's counterlooping), won nine in a row. In the second, Khoa served at 9-all, and serve and ripped winner, then won a nice rally by blocking. In the third, Khoa leads 5-2, Pradi takes a timeout, but it doesn't help. The fourth is all Khoa.
With his win over Pradi, the battle for the Olympic spots are starting to shape up. Huang and Lupulesku have clinched their spots. (Khoa or David could force a tie with Lupi, but he beat them both head to head and so would finish ahead of them.) The battle for the third spot is a three-way battle between Khoa, David Zhuang and Bence Csaba. (This assumes David doesn't upset Johnny Huang - if he wins, that changes everything.) If Khoa beats Bence, he gets the spot. If he loses, and Bence also beats David, then Bence gets the spot. If David beats Bence, and Bence beats Khoa, it's a three-way tie that goes to games and possibly points. (Note that Khoa has already beaten David, 4-2.)
Olympians! |
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| 1st Johnny Huang (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
2nd Ilija Lupulesku (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
3rd Khoa Nguyen (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
This is a BIG match, sort of match #2 of the "round robin" for the third and final spot on the Men's Olympic Team, between these two and Khoa.
They split the first two games. In game three, Bence leads 7-4, then it's 9-all, David serving - and two points later (with Bence missing a loop kill to an open table to end it), David wins game three, 11-9. Bence clearly loses his temper at missing the final shot, and when the next game starts, is still clearly irritated - and David wins the first two points, the second when Bence goes for a wild, nearly impossible shot. David pulls away with steady blocking and pick-hitting, and some well-chosen (but varied) serves that Bence misses, 11-6. In the last game, David goes up 6-1. Bence pulls off a great backhand loop, David applauds, says, "good shot." Moments later, it's 6-4. Then Bence gets a net, 6-5. David calls a time-out. During the timeout, Bence tries to pick up the ball with his foot, but the umpire thinks he's trying to step on it, and yellow cards him, to Bence's vigorous protests and the crowd's boos. After they return, however, it's all David, 11-7. (At 10-6, Bence loops on the edge, and David walks over to the spot, massages the spot to the crowd's laughter.)
The Canadian coach, Dejan Papic, was very unhappy with the umpire in this match, claiming that David was not getting his arm out of the way when he served. After the match, he refused to shake David's hand.
With Khoa's win over David, and David's win over Bence, the key upcoming match will be Bence vs. Khoa. Here are the four scenarios:
| The Scenarios | |
| Khoa d. Bence Csaba | Khoa makes team |
| Bence d. Khoa 4-0, Johnny d. David | Bence makes team |
| Bence d. Khoa, David d. Johnny | David makes team |
| Bence d. Khoa, but Khoa wins at least one game | David makes team |
Interestingly, if David upsets Johnny, it makes no difference in the scenarios unless Bence were to beat Khoa 4-0.
It's a pure rallying match, with Petra hitting and counter-hitting, Jasna looping and hitting. Jasna starts to run away with it, winning the first at 7 and leading 9-6 in the second. Petra ties it at 9-all, but Jasna wins the next two, and raises her arms in very happy triumph. However, Petra battles back, and plays like a wall in game three - very hard to score against, and at key points (including the last point) she smashed winners to win, 11-9. Petra's coach calls a timeout at 1-5 in the fourth game, but it doesn't help - Jasna is suddenly on fire, winning 11-1. In the fifth, from 5-all, Petra plays careless, makes a series of mistakes, and Jasna wins easily, 11-7.
Jasna, who finished at 4-0, has clinched first place. Tawny (2-1), Petra (finished, at 2-2) and Chris (1-2) are all in the running for the other two spots. The next match - the final match for the women - will decide everything. If Tawny wins, Tawny comes in second (3-1), and Petra third (2-2). If Chris wins, then all three are 2-2, and it goes to games. Below are the possible scenarios:
| The Scenarios | ||
| Tawny d. Chris | 2nd Tawny | 3rd Petra |
| Chris d. Tawny 4-0 | 2nd Chris | 3rd Petra |
| Chris d. Tawny 4-1 | 2nd Chris | 3rd Tawny |
| Chris d. Tawny 4-2 | 2nd Chris | 3rd Tawny |
| Chris d. Tawny 4-3 | 2nd Tawny | 3rd Chris |
However, Tawny quickly tore all the complicated scenarios above to pieces, absolutely dominating the match and winning easily. She played with both a relentless attack and yet patience, knowing when to push and start her attack over, and she went after Chris' middle (a chopper's biggest weakness) over and over - and then did quick winning loops to corners. (Each time she did so, you could see Coach Doru nodding his head.)
For Chris, it was so close - 6-6 in the seventh with Petra Cada the day before, only to lose at 7 when expedite was called, or she'd have made the team. As it was, the final spot on the team was decided by that game from 6-6 on.
So the final standings for women, with the top three going to the Olympics (along with USA's pre-qualified Gao Jun):
This is a match-up of the two pips-out men, both close-to-the-table players who hit and counter-hit - or often smash and counter-smash. This led to the fastest rallies of the tournament. David starts out the first two games fast, leading 5-1 and 5-2, but both times Johnny comes back. In the second game, up 9-8, David is forced off the table, drops his racket and throws the ball back (it misses, barely), as the crowd laughs. The points are great, but Huang wins 4-0.
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| 4th David Zhuang (USA) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
5th Bence Csaba (CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
6th Pradeeban Peter-Paul
(CAN) Photo by Gerry Chua ©2004 |
This match had no affect on the standings, but it was still a good match. Early on, Lupi had trouble with Pradi's inside-out forehand serve - as everyone except perhaps Khoa had - but he mostly adjusted. However, Pradi seemed "on" this match, and was relentless both on attack and defense. Down 2-1 in games, and 7-9 in the fourth, Pradi won four in a row to tie it at 2-2. In the fifth, he pulled away to 7-3 - then (despite a timeout at 7-6) lost eight in a row. The sixth was all Lupi, 11-1, as Lupi finished out the match by scoring 19 of the last 20 points.
And now comes the final match of the Trials, the one that will decide the final player going to the Olympics: Khoa, Bence, or David. All three have a shot. Khoa has to win the match to make the team; Bence has to win 4-0 to make the team; David makes it if Bence wins, but not 4-0. (If Bence wins, there's a 3-way tie that goes to games.)
Bence comes out ripping, making some rather incredible backhand loop kills early on, and runs away with game one, 11-4. He's 1/4 of the way toward making the Olympic Team.
In game two, Khoa goes up 3-0 - and the Canadian coach calls a timeout, to the surprise of many. Why is he calling a timeout so early in a match? Because from the Canadian perspective, every game is the last game, as Bence must win 4-0 to make the Olympics. However, the timeout doesn't pay off as Khoa continues to rip, going up 10-0 and winning 11-4, ending Bence's chances. (Yes, Khoa got sloppy at the end - it started to look like Bence might get back into it.) So Bence is now eliminated - so it's between Khoa and David. If Khoa wins, he's on to the Olympics. If he loses, it's David. And how hard, deep down, can Bence play at this point?
Pretty hard, as he goes up 7-3 in the third. At 7-4, Bence is faulted, 7-5, then it's 7-all. It appears the fault has bothered him - he's playing passive. Then it's 9-7 Bence, no longer passive. Khoa serve & rips two in a row, 9-all. Khoa backhand spins Bence's serve, makes the first (Bence misses the block), misses the second, 10-all. Bence misses a loop, Khoa makes a backhand loop - really his bread and butter much of this tournament - and Khoa has come back to win, 12-10.
Between games, there is a huge fight between the Canadian Coach (Dejan Papic) and the Referee (Karol Ziduliak). But with the fault, the crowd is now very loudly in favor of Khoa.
In game five, Bence goes up 5-1, then Khoa is faulted - by the other umpire, so 6-1. But Khoa shakes it off, and gradually pulls close, to 8-6. He loop kills Bence's serve off, 9-6, but gets in a loop kill the next rally, and so serves up 9-7. He serve & loops, and gets a net, 9-8. Then it's backhand-backhand, and Bence misses a backhand loop, 9-9, Bence to serve. He serve & loops off, 9-10. He serve & loops - five times - to win the next point against Khoa's blocking, 10-all. Next is a long, topspin rally, both banging it back and forth, until finally Bence misses a big windup backhand loop. Khoa next loops in the serve, and the two counterloop - and Bence finally misses. Game to Khoa, 12-10, to go up 3-2 - and one game from making the Olympics. Quite a comeback from down 1-6!
In the sixth, Khoa goes up 2-0 - and then is faulted on his serve. For the first time, Khoa is visibly upset about this. and then - he's faulted again! 2-2!
Let's just say that USA Coach Dan Seemiller is furious, and he has it out with the referee. But the score stands at 2-2, and after a long break, play resumes, Bence to serve. When Khoa loops in Bence's first serve, the crowd, despite being pro-Canadian, cheers - they aren't happy about the faults.
So the score goes to 3-3, 4-4, then Bence goes up 6-4. Then it's 6-6. Khoa absolutely rips Bence's serve for a winner to tie it at 7-all. Then loses both points on his serve, 7-9, on a missed backhand loop and a weak return that Bence rips. Khoa gets a net, 8-9. Then loops the serve off, 8-10, Khoa to serve. He serve & backhand loops into the net, and it's into the seventh game.
Khoa goes up 2-0 in the seventh - and if there's any doubt Bence wants to win this, his yell of disgust ends that. At 3-3, Khoa makes his move - goes up 7-3, then 9-5 (helped by a couple of nets & edges - sort of making up for the faults?), and almost anticlimatically, wins 11-6.
So the final standings for men, with the top three going to the Olympics:
2004 North American Olympic Singles Trials Home Page
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