2008 Butterfly Cary Cup Championship by Tim Boggan

photo by William Chestnut

By Tim Boggan

I didn’t attend my first USTTA tournament—the legendary John Varga’s South Bend, IN Open—until I was almost 20 years old. Now, nearly 60 years have passed and during that time I’ve met and admired quite a few tournament organizers who’ve held, purely as a labor of love, well-known, well-attended annual Championships. None, however, in my long experience, has been more ambitious, more devoted to giving the participants classy varied-event play than Mike Babuin who continues to promote his yearly, ever-improving Cary, N.C. tournament (300 entries this year).

Consider what Mike’s been able to achieve for his Mar. 13-16, 2008 Butterfly Cary Cup Championship (his centerpiece attraction). He not only knows how to keep the sponsors he has—the Marriott Courtyard; the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau; the Newgy Corp.; and the Town of Cary that provides the multiple-gym venue at the Bond Park Community Center—he relentlessly seeks out new sponsors. Recently he’s added the North American “Butterfly” distributor, Martin-Kilpatrick; NC Communications; Raleigh Academy of Chinese Language; Accu-Tech, a leader in the wireless cable adapter/networking industry; and Stantec Consulting, a global Fortune 500 engineering consulting company.
Thus Babuin can offer prize money in the Thurs. U-2400’s, the Fri. Open Doubles and, uniquely, in the U.S. Classic (Hardbat) Open (1st: $1,000; 2nd: $500; 3rd-4th: $300); and the Sat.-Sun. Butterfly Cary Cup Championship (1st: $3,500; 2nd: $1,500; 3rd-4th: $750; 5th-8th: $400; 9th-16th: $200). Though Mike feels as I do that only the better players should win prize money, he gives the lesser-rated players multiple opportunities to win the best, the most expensive trophy cups ($6,500 worth) I’ve ever seen offered at any tournament in the U.S.

To offset the fact that U.S. citizens may not be good enough, may not work hard enough, to win the top money prizes, he provides two $250 travel vouchers to U.S. National Team members (in 2008, Eric Owens and Han Xiao)—this in addition to the prize money they were certain to win. He also offers $125 cash to the top-finishing Junior player (this’ll be Canada’s Shen Qiang) and $75 cash to the top-finishing Cadet (the U.S.’s Peter Li).

The attractive 12-page Program, skillfully edited and laid out by Dean Johnson, with Graphic Design direction by Chris O’Brien, showcases Steve Reiling’s imaginative fiery cover, and includes photos and bios of the leading players, many of them from outside the U.S.
Of course Mike’s wife Amanda again acted as Operations Manager, with an able assist from Daphne Lee, as well as help from Mike and Mandy’s daughters, Lisa, Julia, and Lucy Tiefenthaler. Additional support came from Tournament Photographer William Chestnut; “Mr. Fix It” Gregg Robertshaw; Clinic Instructors O’Brien and D. J. Settle; and other volunteers like Flip Carico and John Pahl. Officials suited to their task were Tournament Referee Larry Kesler; Deputy Referee Jim McQueen; and Chief Umpire Dick Evans.

Because Mike’s interest in Table Tennis History rivals my own, he brought in a videography crew to cover the matches, as he said, “for posterity”; provided space for Pat Hildebrand and husband Robert to hawk Pat’s new book Called To Serve (see my review in the Nov.-Dec., 2007 issue of the USATT magazine); and set up three large cases lining the Center’s entrance corridor that contained Mike’s much-envied Cary Museum, a collection he’s labored to acquire over the years consisting of antique rackets and balls, and little-seen old t.t. books, magazines, posters, and photos. Truly Babuin’s the Players Promoter we dreamed of when we formed the short-lived Players Association back in the mid-1970’s.

Now for Mike’s two Main Events—the Friday Classic Hardbat and his weekend Butterfly Cary Cup Championship—though I’ll make reference to other events as well.

Classic Hardbat
Standing tall in Division A Classic Hardbat play was the $1,000 winner, Player/Coach Shigang Yang (8-0), once based in Shanghai, but now, having secured his Green Card, playing out of Brentwood, TN and coaching at Joe Newgarden’s Club. Another who learned his table tennis abroad was Bong Geun Kim, a 27-year-old penholder from Seoul on a scholarship to Atlanta’s Georgia Perimeter College of Nursing. His father in 1988 and 2000 won t.t. gold in the Paralympics and his sister is currently a professional player for Korean Airlines. Kim had beaten Lim Ming Chui (U-4200 Doubles winner with Chris O’Brien over Jim McQueen and Ray Mack)—but Ming (6-2), bolstered by wins over Defending Champ Eric Owens (6-2) and Loc Ngo (5-3), went on to finish second.

Loc, who’d recently returned from playing in his native Vietnam, had won the opening U-2400 Thursday event in straight games over both Chui, whose recurring calcium build-up turns his left elbow to stone and makes him eligible for paralympic play, and, in the final, DiDi Desouza. (Ed Ball, for one, said that “Loc’s touch was quite amazing and not vulnerable to DiDi’s power.”) He seemed to be carrying over his fine play in the Hardbat event, for again he was beating Ming badly, had him down 1-0 and 10-0…17-10 in the 2nd. But then, as one fellow said, he “had a focus problem,” became bothered by spectators talking and absolutely lost all concentration. (“My head was gone,” said Loc. “It never happened to me before”).

Some people felt that tie-breakers were fine if there was an unbreakable trophy at stake, but when there were money prizes, players with the same match record should split the money. Were that the Hardbat case here, Ming ($500) and Eric ($300) would have split, and Kim (5-3) would have shared $300 with Loc instead of getting nothing for losing to him. (It just wasn’t Kim’s weekend—he hurt his finger, couldn’t hold his racket without pain, and so, though seeded 13th, had to default out of Cup play.)

Dimitri Mondous, originally from Siberia, rallied to win the B’s from California’s Ball who credits Danny Seemiller for teaching him the vertical loop stroke that allowed him to get by Valor’s Alberto Prieto. Dean Norman took the C’s from Newgy’s Roger Dickson. Moundos says he loves to play hardbat and does so four or five times a week. To those who scoff at his choice, he says, “Your racket’s junk, not mine!” Alas, only recently did his son Ilya, the 2005 U.S. Open Boys U-11 Champion, switch from table tennis to tennis.

Butterfly Cary Cup
In the First Stage of the Cup event, 40 round robin groups of four, 160 players in all, are snaked in according to rating. In the Second Stage, four separate A, B, C, D Divisions form as a result of round robin finishes in the First Stage. Each Division, the A being the strongest, then continues play with four round robin groups of ten. In the B, C, and D Divisions, the winners of these four groups play a climactic round robin to determine the final positions. In the A Division, where nearly $10,000 is at stake, a different-ending format is used. Out of the four round robin groups of ten, four players advance from each group to form a 16-player single elimination draw.

First Stage
Some First Stage Cary Cup advancers I might mention were: Dr. De Tran who dropped an opening game to Le Ly, the U-2000 winner over Venkat Vishwanathan; and Pierre-Luc Theriault, 15, considered by Canadian Coach Dejan Papic to be the best Cadet in North America. Although he lives 500 kilometers away, he comes to Montreal every second week to train. By October Montreal will have its own permanent 8-table gym, and its Sports School Club perhaps as many as five coaches (Christian Foisy has already moved there from the Ottawa Training Center). The training will not only focus on Juniors but on those serious students who after high school are concentrating at least for the moment on table tennis rather than on university studies. Because their players need tournament experience, the 10-member Montreal contingent, including Mitch Rothfleisch and his Table Tennis Pioneers-sponsored juniors, paid their own way to Cary, economizing wherever and whenever possible.

Also advancing: Thomas An defeated Elaine Kwok, U-3300 Doubles winner with Steve Nguyen over Brandon/Brian Luong. Rocky Wang downed Gamesh Balasubraman, C Cup winner over Yuri Godin. Bernard Eballar got the better of Tom Miller, 11-8 in the fifth. Lee McCool did damage to Jim McQueen (”Lee smashed a ball in my face,” Jim quipped by way of explaining why he appeared wearing, bulbously clown-like, a cracked orange ball on his nose). Sweden’s Mattias Lindstrom escaped Gregg Robertshaw, 11-9 in the fifth. Scott Butler stopped Ray Mack—no surprise ‘cause Ray recently went to San Diego to take not playing but coaching lessons from Stellan Bengtsson.

Maxime Surprenant advanced over Sam Berry, runner-up in the D Cup to Charles Broadie. Chance Friend, Piano, TX, won from transplanted Englishman Michael Levene, the B Cup Champ over Aldous Presley. And Hiep Tran upset Raphael Flores. Neither U-1350 winner Nick Gentry nor runner-up Charles Bily played in the Cup Championship, but Bily did take home another cup for coming second with John Weaver in the 2500 Doubles won by Michael Huang/Shen Chu Wang. Uncharacteristically, Chui, now 60, didn’t seem to care much about playing in the Cup (didn’t think he could win prize money?), arrived too late for the A’s, and though Mike let him enter the B’s, he played at least one match in his sandals and lost to Presley in 5. His outdoor tai chi demonstration to me was impressive, though. Ming says to be a competent beginner in the 108 movements, it takes one to three years; says it’s as hard as table tennis to get good at.

Second Stage
In the 10-player A-1 group, there weren’t any swing matches. Nigeria’s Segun Toriola, the #1 seed and the #1 player in Africa since 1995, went through his opponents without losing a game. Surprised he showed up here? Said he had a couple of weeks off from his league play in France, was just browsing through the internet when he saw this Championship and thought he’d come see what a U.S. tournament was like. (Think he thought this event, with its $3,500 first prize, was typical?) He certainly started off well—paired with Shigang Yang to win the $400 Open Doubles from Japanese-trained Joji Yamazaki and Canadian National Team member Homayoun Kamkar-Parsi. Advancing in expected order after Toriola were Yang with one loss, Peter Li with two, and the Donn Olsen-coached Lee McCool with three.

In the A-2 group, Owens (9-0) upset the tournament’s #2 seed Yamazaki (8-1), a win that in Stage Three would put the #1 and #2 seeds in the same half of the draw. DeSouza (6-3), though losing to Chance Friend, and being pressed by a maturing Marcus Jackson (who also later obligingly umpired matches) came third. De Tran (6-3) dropped an 11-9-in-the-fifth thriller to Yamazaki, and another five-gamer to DeSouza to finish fourth.

In the A-3 group, Wang Zhen (9-0), the #2 player in Canada behind “Wilson” Peng Zhang, finished first. Kamkar-Parsi (8-1), second. Ms.Ying Lu, the player I most liked to watch because of her penhold angled-off placement game was third—going five with Kamkar-Parsi and giving Wang his only one-game loss. Brian Pace (5-4), despite a 3-0 blank against John Mar, came fourth, rallying from down 2-0 to defeat John Wetzler and from down 2-1 to defeat the young, always worried-looking Theriault. As a result, he was able to advance via a head-to-head tie-breaker over Rocky Wang (5-4). Wetzler (4-5) in addition to losing that swing match to Rocky, also couldn’t take advantage of the 2-1 lead he had over Lu.

In the closely contested A-4 group, Han Xiao (8-1), stumbling only with a 3-0 loss to Lu’s friend Thomas Yu (5-4), finished first. Shen Qiang (8-1) was second. Third, though with an unexpected five-game loss to Hiep Tran (4-5), was Raghu Nadmichettu (6-3). And hanging in there after losing his first four matches was Rich DeWitt (5-4), winning the five-game matches he had to over teenagers Preston Chin (4-5) and Quebec’s Lim Kun Yang (4-5)—the latter a particularly scary 11-9-in-the-5th win after being 10-6 up—to advance via a tie-breaker over Yu who says he practices in a Philadelphia basement.

Third Stage
Six of the eighth’s matches are 3-0 uncontested: Toriola over De Tran; Kamkar-Parsi over Nadmichettu; Han Xiao over Peter Li (Peter mis-serving to end it all); Wang Zhen over DeWitt; Yang over the exclamatory De Souza; Owens over McCool. After winning the opening two games 7 and 6, Yamazaki looks like he’s set the pace for Pace who that very morning had ridden his “bike” 20 miles before the now two-down climb facing him. Suddenly, though, Brian, who’d taken a four-year leave of absence from tournament play and is in the process of re-seasoning himself, finds his attacking game and forces the Japanese into the fifth. Riding his momentum, Pace is 4-0 up when he mis-serves—swerves off course, and thereafter fails to return two serves, loses a counter-exchange, and before you, or rather he, can call Time, is down 7-4. Nor as his film of this match will tell him can he get back into contention. “I need more practice,” he says.

Ying Lu, down 5-0 in the first, would be no match for 18-year-old Canadian International Shen Qiang? Ah, think back to the Program notes. Ying had not only played for her Guangxi Province Team but had been selected to join the Chinese National Team. That she’d opted instead to get a degree in International Economics from East China University didn’t mean that those 2647 rating numbers she’d produced had been consumed away. Fast forward: first game to Ying, 11-9. Then, with the match tied 1-1, you can soon read the scorecard distribution of points in the third game: Lu 10, Qiang 2. No wonder he looks unconcerned, even bored—what point is there in worrying? In the fourth, Lu’s down 6-4, then 11-7 up and out.

Now the quarter’s. Toriola vs. Kamkar-Parsi who douses the newly selected ball with bottled baptismal water then towels it off. A powerful backhand, followed by a powerful forehand and the Canadian’s off, 2-0, 4-2 up…then, after a viciously exciting exchange that sends him swirling on the seat of his pants, he’s down 7-4. Yep, points come and go quickly—Toriola takes the first 11-6. In the second, Kamkar-Parsi challenges, but can’t win from 9-all. He ends by pushing his serve return into the net, then, in irritation, flips the dumb ball away. The Iranian-born Canadian learned table tennis while living in Germany, and though, like Timo Boll, he has powerful double-wing shots, and can ace Toriola with a great down-the-line counter, best he can do as the match quickly comes to an end is an unrewarding 7-11.

Against Yamazaki, Han Xiao, who’s now a Senior Business and Computer Science major at the University of Maryland in College Park, keys himself up well enough to slash in a low-ball counter to take the opening game 13-11. And just in time apparently, for Han then drops 7 of the next 8 points, and soon the match is tied. Streaky play, shared now, characterizes the third game—with Han up 4-0, 8-4…then 9-10 down. But again he pulls out the close one, 12-10, when Joji pushes into the net. “YO!” says Han looking hard at Yamazaki. The fourth, which features an extended forehand exchange that has the crowd abuzz before the point is finished, finds Yamazaki leading 10-8. But Han is cool—a smooth forehand forces a 10-9 Time from Joji, and when play resumes, a loud footstamp serve and follow bring it to deuce. This close one, however, Han does not win—he tries to backhand in a serve return, then whiffs a forehand. In the 5th, Han gets behind 0-4, 3-9…and is a goner.
Canada Cup winner Wang Zhen, formerly based in British Columbia, now at the Ottawa Training Center, faced an experienced opponent in the lanky, intense penholder Shigang Yang. After beginning play as a five-year-old, he became at 13 a professional and joined the Shanghai Men’s Team. Later, he was a member of the East China Team that won the World University Championship in Bulgaria in 1998, and in 2003 he helped his Slovenia team win their League Championship. Current coaching interests aside, he was still enough of a player to be disappointed when his opening 9-6 lead evaporated. It was he who in the 2nd game stopped play on hearing a ringing cell phone, but, urgent as his situation was, no match-changing call came through, there was no help for him.

Eric Owens, pursuing his six-year dual degree at a Chicago School of Osteopathy had a Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology textbook with him. Might you be interested in the Etiologic Agents of Infectious Disease? Probably not, the bugs would scare you silly—1,000,000 on your eyelashes alone, and more in your body than there are people in the world. Of course Eric wasn’t studying that textbook out there on court against Ying Lu. But then just what was he doing? Not winning points in that first game—er, sorry, he did get 3. But in the second, as if bugged by his poor showing, he powered in enough forehands to hold his own…then, down 11-10, he must have blinked, brought on an imbalance of sorts, for he mis-served, a crucial error. In the third, when at 4-3 Lu hit in his serve, neither Time nor Coach Andre Scott could save him.
The semi’s are played one at a time. Yamizaki’s match with Toriola may be the last we see of Joji in the States—he says he’s returning to Japan for “personal reasons.” Since Toriola is very nearly one of the top 100 players in the world, it won’t do for Yamizaki to repeatedly get off to a slow start, spot him three points every game. Both players have point-winning wind-ups, but Toriola’s backhand loop into Joji’s far forehand scores every time. Only in the second, down 9-10, does the Japanese have his chance, but Toriola stops him, third-ball catches him smack in his middle.

Back at the 2007 Baltimore Team’s, Wang Zhen was touted as the best player in Canada, but then he didn’t look so good. Today, however, against slight of build Ying Lu, Wang, chunky, appears likely to overpower her. With his strong play in the first, he seems in control, at ease, looks very good. What he’s thinking inside we don’t know, but outside his face is, well, blank. But not Lu’s—as she comes off court after the opening game, unable with her great thrust-block forcing to stave off Wang’s powerful attack, she smiles, as if to say, “Well, I’m doing my best, but he is playing well, isn’t he?”

As the match continues, I’m delighted by Lu’s “different” play. Time and again she knows right where Wang’s all-out forehand is going, and never blocks passively, but wrenches, twists her penholder returns to make him move to follow any attacking advantage he might have. She can pass Wang with an outstretched chop/push sharply-angled return; can turn his attack into her own, jabbing away at him, then off-her-feet following with counter forehands. But it’s her forehand, particularly against Wang’s lobs, that does her in. After missing key winners in a second game she might have won, she can no longer connect—though, ever serious, she admirably fights to the 11-5 end.
No sooner than Wang finishes his semi’s, he’s wanted for the final. “What’s the hurry?” he says. “I need to re-glue, need to rest. I want a half hour.” Of course the audience is waiting expectantly and, more important, so is the mayor. “You can have 10 minutes,” says Tournament Referee Kesler. “I need at least 20,” says Wang. “How about 9?” says Kesler.

A short time later, Wang’s out on court with Toriola, finishing his re-gluing at the table. As the best 4 out of 7 final starts, it’s obvious both players have strong forehands—Toriola’s ball that earlier was a point-winner against others is being countered by Wang. Also, if out of position, Wang can backhand-counter from mid-distance to get back into the point. He wins the first two games rather easily—once, on scoring a point, surprising me by slowly pivoting round to the audience and, retaining his impassivity, raising a finger. Which means…what?
The third game, though, is a battle—Toriola is exerting more forehand control. The match is now the best one of the tournament, in fact momentarily I think I’m at the World’s. Still, it may be too late for the Nigerian—he whiffs to go game-point down. But then comes a turning point—Toriola serves and fearlessly follows. Deuce. And now Chance capitalizes on Courage: ad up, Toriola gets an irretrievable net. In the fourth, Wang is down 7-2 and smiling—but apparently not to save face, for he obviously just gives up this game. Two each.

In the fifth, the Nigerian’s on-the-run backhand-bang-in gets him to 3-all. Only then, up 5-4, he takes such a bad shot that, finger to his head, finger to his head, he looks as if he wants to shoot himself, twice. By the time they reach 8-all, Toriola has been making encouraging guttural noises to self and grunting as he makes swat-contact. Back on defense, he works the ball beautifully to take over the offense and runs out the game.

Wang’s now lost three straight games—he doesn’t want to try for a fourth. Up 5-4, he gets careless: after Toriola, stretching, returns a ball but is out of position, Wang much too casually tries to drop the ball, and errs in doing so. Acrobatic stretches, pummeling forehands follow. Down 9-7, the Nigerian’s in trouble…but then, no, he isn’t. He wins it 11-9 to the accompaniment of Wang’s racket hitting the floor and maybe even some groans from the spectators who want the exciting play to continue. “This match,” says one unaccustomed to such action, “was beyond imagination.”