$75,000 U.S. Open 
& ITTF Pro Tour
Fort Lauderdale, Florida • July 5-9, 2000

Day Two: Thursday, July 6 Report 
By Larry Hodges

ITTF Pro Tour

There were a number of upsets today, with World Champion Liu Guoliang, European Champion Peter Karlsson, Jorgen Persson, and Zoran Primorac all losing in the round of 32.

Liu Guoliang' of China's loss was probably the most surprising. Japan's Seiko Iseki, a penhold looper from Japan, at 11, -17, 19, 20. Iseki's loops were just too strong, and he didn't have as much trouble with Liu's serves as most players do.

Peter Karlsson of Sweden's loss was an upset, but not too surprising, as he is known for being weak against choppers. He lost to the man with the unpronounceable name, Evgueni Chtchetinine of Belarus, 8, -17, 15, -19, 17. Karlsson's major strength against choppers is his opening backhand loop against pushes - but Chtchetinine brought most of them back, and pushed mostly to the forehand to stop it. Karlsson's loop is strong against topspin, but not as strong against backspin. Karlsson did win a number of points with a deceptive inside-out loop to Chtchetinine's backhand, but missed too many forehand throughout the match.

Jorgen Persson of Sweden, fresh off of sweeping the Chinese team at the world team championships, lost to fellow Swede Fredrick Hakansson, 15, -17, -14, 20, 19. It was obvious the two practice together a lot - they both knew each other's games, and seemed ready for anything the other did, so great rallies.

Zoran Primorac of Croatia lost to another chopper, Koji Matsushita of Japan, -7,17,13,13. Like Karlsson, Primorac's loop is more a forward-driving loop, stronger against topspin than against backspin.  

Jan-Ove Waldner of Sweden had a relatively close call with Sang Eun Oh of Korea. Oh won the first at 17, and led much of the second game before losing the match, -17, 17, 17, 16. Oh seemed to stay with Waldner or actually lead many of the games, only to see Waldner pull it out at the end. Waldner also pulled off probably the shot of the tournament: Waldner popped the ball up to Oh's wide backhand; Oh creamed it with his forehand down the line to Waldner's wide forehand; Waldner, standing perhaps four feet from the table, sort of leaned to his right, and pulled off what can only be described as an underhanded loop of the ball as it was still rising, and creamed it right back down the line to Oh's backhand for a clean winner past the stunned Oh - and stunned audience!

USA Notes

David Zhuang had to default out of men's singles and doubles (with Todd Sweeris) due to tendonitis in his wrist. All USA players are now out. Cheng Yinghua lost to Austria's Werner Schlager, 16, 9, 19 (losing the last point when Schlager pulled off an incredible inside-out, off-the-bounce counterloop of Cheng's powerful loop). Todd Sweeris lost to Chih-Yuan Chuan of Taiwan, 21, 14, -17, 12. 

The top two USA women lost five-game heartbreakers. USA #1 Gao Jun Chang lost a heart-breaker to Mihaela Steff of Romania, 20, -18, 17, -16, 20. Amy Feng lost to Tonia Hofmann of Germany after winning the first two, -15, -13, 16, 19, 18. Jasna Reed lost to Olga Nemes of Germany, 5, 15, 13.  Tawny Banh lost to Rie Tsujimoto of Japan, 15, 16, 14. Xiu-Zhen Lin lost to Jing Xu of Taiwan, 10, 15, 19.

U.S. Open Events

Wang Tao was the big star in the U.S. Open events. While all of the ITTF Pro Tour stars were playing in the Pro Tour arena's, the mostly-retired Chinese star Wang Tao was entertaining the crowd in the Over 30 Singles event. He playfully creamed all opponents, beating 2200+ players by scores such as 21-6 (twice) and 21-4 (once) in reach the final - where he defeated 2363-rated Luis Ruiz (who had upset second-seeded Brian Masters two straight) by scores of ... 2 & 9. The Over 30 draw was not as strong as normal, as players were not allowed to play in both Pro Tour events and U.S. Open events, so players such as Cheng Yinghua and David Zhuang were not entered - not to mention stars like Waldner and Jorgen Persson, who in the past had been eligible, but didn't enter.

In senior events, it was Richard Hicks over Henry McCoullum in Over 50 Men's Singles. McCoullum, down 20-15 in the third to second-seeded David Sakai, came back to win that game 28-26 on his way to the final. Hick had also had to battle, with his moment of truth in the semifinals against Lim Ming Chui, where he lost the first 21-8, and had to pull out the second 25-23 to win, -8, 23, 27.

Hicks then teamed with Nich Mintsiveris to win Over 60 Doubles over Marvin Leff and Bohdan Dawidowicz.

Grady Gordon defeated Leon Ruderman in Over 70 Singles, 14 & 19. Ruderman/Gordon had won Over 70 Doubles the day before over Marty Reisman and Tim Boggan, the two losing semifinalists here.

Yongzhi Yang defeated Zebin Zhang in an all-Chinese Under 22 Men's Singles final, 12 & 21. In 16 games they played in reaching the finals, none scored more than 16, with most getting far fewer. USA's top under 22 entry, Mark Hazinski, seeded second, made the semifinals, losing to Zhang at 10 & 14. USA's Ashu Jain, USA's #2 entry and seeded #3, was stuck with eventual winner Yang in the second round, losing in the second round (after a first-round bye) at 16 & 14.

Under 22 Women's Singles was also a Chinese sweep, this time with Xuemin Zhao defeating Jun Hu at 13, -19, 14 in the final. 

China continued its domination by winning Under 18 Girl's Singles, with Huizai defeating Johana Garcia of Puerto Rico in the final at 6 & 9.

In Under 2200, the expected ringer, Kwaovi Didi DeSouza defeated John Beaumont in the final. Why expected? Because in unprocessed tournaments, DeSouza had won Under 2600 and made the final of Under 2500 at the recent Butterfly Open in North Carolina. He'd had wins over Barney J. Reed, Sean Lonergan, and two over Mark Hazinski. And he's in Under 2200?  Watch for him in Under 2300 and Under 2450 as well!

In Under 1800, it was Yemao Huang over William Beaumont, -19, 11, 16.

In Hardbat Singles, play went into the semifinals, with a pair of titanic five-game matches in the quarterfinals. In a near exact replica of their match in the semifinals of the Nationals 2.5 years ago, Ty Hoff defeated Larry Hodges, 14, -19, 21, 16, 11. New star Alexis Perez, thought by many to be the favorite here, defeated Ashu Jain, -17, 14, -9, 7, 7, with Perez completely dominating the last two games. In the semifinals, Defending Champion Ty Hoff (who's also won the last two Nationals) will face Perez, while Brian Masters will face Lily Yip.

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