President's Report

By Sheri Soderberg Pittman

The U.S. Open is moving to Chicago. USATT recently executed a sponsorship and licensing contract with Killerspin, which includes a provision that ensures that the U.S. will host a major ITTF Pro Tour through 2006! Thanks to Executive Director Doru Gheorghe who served as USATT’s primary negotiator, along with Treasurer Tong Lee and USATT Legal Counsel Dennis Taylor.

Given that during the last Olympic year our U.S Open had an even stronger draw than the Olympics (due to the 3-person per country restriction in singles) and that our event is the last tournament affecting seeding at the Olympics, plan to come and see an amazing field of competitors. Many of these players already have visited Chicago for the Killerspin events held at the close of December. I was pleased to meet with ITTF president Adham Sharara at the event.

Congratulations to Jasna Reed and Ilija Lupulesku, the title winners of the women’s and men’s singles at the U.S. Nationals. With tournament direction overseen by the NATT staff, along with volunteers, officials and USATT staff, the event ran smoothly. The new awards presentation feature gave all of the winners the recognition they deserve. We were happy that Chris Vadala, the USOC Sports Partnership Director who works with USATT, was able to attend the event and meet with so many of our members. Thanks to our equipment sponsors – our table sponsor, Martin-Kilpatrick/Butterfly and our ball sponsor, Nittaku/Paddle Palace. And thank you to all of the other contributors who support USATT with your time and money.

At the Nationals I presented the President’s Award to Doru Gheorghe. As both our Women’s Team Coach and Executive Director, Doru made substantial contributions to USATT in 2003, both seen and unseen. The USATT Board of Directors, at our November meeting, thanked him for the excellent work he’s done for USATT. Of course it’s a difficult job and there is a lot of work yet to be done. Progress has clearly been made. It’s exciting to see so many recent positive results.

Congratulations to all of the athletes who made USATT’s 2004 National Teams, with special recognition to USATT’s Athletes of the Year – Gao Jun and Mark Hazinski. In particular, Gao Jun has found her stride and recently defeated Olympic and World Champion Wang Nan at the Women’s World Cup last December.

USATT will soon unveil a new website look with additional features. Please visit www.usatt.org to see regular news updates. The new USATT League, which is prominently featured on the website, has recently surpassed 10,000 rated league matches!

USATT will hold Board elections this fall. Positions up this year are: President, Secretary and two Vice President positions. Nominating & Elections Committee Chair Ross Brown will be presenting info on the election for interested candidates in the next issue of the magazine and on the website.

Thanks again to the many people contributing to USATT’s recent successes! If you would like to become more involved, please contact Doru or me.