US Men's Play at the Guangzhou World's by Tim Boggan

photo by Qi Dazheng

U.S. Men’s Play at the Guangzhou World’s

By Tim Boggan
I like to write For The Record, so here’s a little something on the disappointing showing our U.S. Men made at the Guangzhou World’s. As Team Captain Danny Seemiller would be the first to point out,
SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE.

The six-teams in each of the Men’s E, F, G, H Groups in the #25-#48 Division 2 block followed the same round robin format as those teams in contention for the Championship in the #1-#24 Division 1 block. The U.S’s realistic aim, unlike our Teams when Seemiller was a player on them in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, was not to advance to Division 1—only two teams would do that—but to remain in the #25-#36 top half of Division 2.
Here then is how the U.S. fared in their initial round robin play:

U.S. (3)—Indonesia (0). A blitz—but really an ominous start. After Han Xiao had won 13-11 in the fourth, both 44-year-old David Zhuang (who was born in Guangzhou and became the Guangdong Province Champion), and Cheng Yinghua (former Szechuan Province Head Coach who’ll be 50 in Nov.and so likely to be the oldest player in the Division) had to go five games, Cheng from down 2-0. Indonesia would go on to finish #47 and be one of the two teams relegated to Division 3. At least that wasn’t us.

U.S. (1)—North Korea (3). Our strongest opponent—they would finish in the highest possible position (#25) and so would advance into Division 1 at the 2010 World’s. They don’t get much international play, but they practice every day at the National Training Center in Pyongyang. David had a good five-game win over defender/forehand top-spinner Jang Song Man.

U.S. (0)—Portugal with its professional players (3). Han had no chance against World #60 Joao Monteiro, or Mark against Marcos Freitas. But David had World #119 Tiago Apolonia down 2-1 before losing. Since Portugal would beat North Korea, 3-2, in round robin play (Apolonia, the U-21 winner at the Brazil Open, downed Kim Hyok Bong, 11-9 in the fifth in the fifth match), it had to be disappointing to them to later drop their advancement tie to the North Koreans, 3-1.With a 3-2 pyrrhic victory over Egypt (#28), Portugal (#27) would finish just behind the Ukraine team (#26) that also would advance into Division 1.

U.S. (1)—Turkey (3). Han stopped Turkey’s Gencay Menge in four, but both Cheng and David, contesting, couldn’t get the turnover game they needed—Cheng at one-all and 10-10 in the third, and David, though winning the second and fourth, losing the third 12-10 to China transplant Jiang Pengfei. (Oh, oh, the ITTF just ruled that for World title events if a player is 21 or older he will NOT be eligible to represent a new association ever (varied lesser restrictions for players under 15, 18, 21). Turkey, after dropping a 3-2 tie to Portugal, finished #32.
U.S. (3)—Vietnam (2). Despite their three previous losses, the U.S. still had an outside long shot to remain in the top half of Division 2. But to do it they had to blank Vietnam 3-0. A daunting (impossible?) task—for Vietnam had earlier beaten Turkey, 3-2, whom we’d just lost to. IF we were to blitz Vietnam, the three-way tie-breaker would read: U.S. 4-3, Turkey 5-4, and Vietnam 3-5—and we would advance behind Portugal and North Korea. So what happened?

David opened with a four-game win; and Han followed with an all-important victory in the fifth. That left it up to Mark who unfortunately was usually a slow starter, at his best in the end game. But here was an all-smiles anomaly—Mark was 2-0 up and had rallied in the third from down 5-7 to take a 9-7 lead. The miracle was about to happen! Two more points, thought Coach Seemiller, and the U.S. would even have a chance to win Division 2 and advance to Division 1! Then, NOOOO! Mark couldn’t serve short, and didn’t loop two long serves coming at him—lost four in a row! Talk about a bummer! Devastating. It was left to David to even win the tie. Vietnam would finish #37, seven places ahead of our #44 deflated team.

After coming fifth in our round robin Group, we also played ties for rather meaningless World Team positions. We finished ahead of: Bosnia-Herzegovina (#46)—Mark, who had to be real down, was bolstered enough by a 16-14 third game, to win a close five-gamer that helped us to at least take that tie. We finished behind Iran (#40)—think we could beat them, if not here, in a Ping-Pong Diplomacy exchange? Finished behind Luxembourg (#42). Finished behind Australia (#43). Danny pointed out that Division 2 players didn’t know David Zhuang’s style, and he praised David for his great serves and blocks, and especially for his smarts, how he cleverly moved the ball around to set up his forehands.
Since, even if we won all these post round-robin ties, we could do no better than #37, there wasn’t much incentive for us to care. Indeed, if the truth be told, there wasn’t much incentive for our Team to care from the beginning. Cheng hadn’t been practicing; Han, near to completing his degree, played well but couldn’t be expected to play better because he went to his club only on weekends; Mark, who had his own trials, wouldn’t be competing at the Olympic Qualifier in Vancouver and, since he was a university student like Han; practiced maybe 8-10 hours a week when he needed to practice at least 20; our much needed four-time U.S. Champion Ilija Lupulesku at the last minute declined to play in the U.S. Team Trials; Eric Owens and then Alternate Shao Yu had their chance to come to Guangzhou but didn’t, which left 32-year-old Sean Lonergan to more or less sit on the U.S. bench.

It hurts not only Danny but me to see this demise happen from when the Seemiller/Boggan brothers shared noisy, passionate years always among the World’s Top 20 (1973-1985), always battling, with strong entourage support, to get into and stay in Division 1 play.
Before ending this article with Seemiller’s thoughts on what the U.S. needs to do to regain its players’ spirit and enthusiasm, I’m going to cover the Canadian and English Teams for their supporters who read this magazine and who’d hoped their players could make Division 1. In the final standings, Canada (#31) followed England (#30). In their H Group’s completed round robin play, it was Canada over England 3-2; Nigeria over Canada 3-1; and England over Nigeria, 3-1. Thus in the tie-breaker, England finished first, got the perk of moving straight to the quarter’s, Nigeria came second, and Canada third.

Canada had started off shakily against Bulgaria (#41)—Pradeeban Peter-Paul, up 2-0, lost a marathon 14-12 in the fifth to Teodor Yordanov, and “Wilson” Peng Zhang, up against Konstantin Parapanov, was down 2-0! But once Wilson “broke” Parapanov (8, 4, 2), Canada didn’t lose another game in that tie. Then the Canadians won a big one over England, 3-2. Paul Drinkhall, the English National Champion, beat both Canada’s #1 Junior, Shen Qiang, and Wilson Zhang. But in a balanced team effort, Zhang downed Darius Knight who, through the Fred Perry Urban Cup program encourages “young people in inner city areas in the U.K. to play table tennis”; Peter-Paul won a nail-biter of a swing match, coming from 2-0 down and 10-8 down in the fifth to defeat Daniel Reed; and Shen, taking his cue from Pradee, rallied to win the fourth and fifth games, 11-8, from Knight, the 2007 Madeira Open winner over Drinkhall.

But then a glitch—against Nigeria, only Wilson could score for Canada with his win over Ekundayo Kazeem Nasiru. Segun Toriola, the longtime African Champion, had four-game wins over Shen and Zhang, and Monday Merotohun, 2007 All-African Games runner-up to Toriola, beat Peter-Paul. Shen also lost a match to Adelaide’s Oceania Champion William Henzell, now playing in a French league, but that one win was all Australia could muster (Henzell also won two in a losing tie with Nigeria). Canada scored its last wins over Israel (#38) and Slovenia (#34) before falling to Portugal in the quarter’s.

The English TTA that for quite a while now had been and still is pushing its teenagers, particularly Drinkhall (who was a four for four winner on the 2007 World Junior Circuit), Knight, Reed, and Evans, sending them with success here and there, has been given considerable financial help by the Government. The Olympics will be in London in 2012 and money is pouring into sports of all kind in the hope that England won’t be embarrassed.

Bulgaria forced England into the perilous fifth when Parapanov (who also had a win over Nigeria’s World #106 Toriola) defeated Knight; Grozdan Grozdanov downed Reed; and Yordanov, up 2-1 and at 12-all in the fourth, almost beat Drinkhall. Nigeria, too, put up a good fight against England. Merotohun, with his team behind 2-0, kept them alive by rallying from 2-0 down to get by Reed. But again Drinkhall rose to the occasion with a 14-12 win in the fifth over Toriola.

Bulgaria’s Grozdanov was the hero against Israel: with his team down 2-0, and he down 2-0 to Shimon Rabinovich, his win spurred Bulgaria to a 3-2 comeback. Israel (#38) also put up feisty resistance to Nigeria—Isaak Abramov lost a staggering 19-17-in-the-fifth to Nasiru, and Yaniv Sharon won an 11-9 in the 5th match from Hakeem Hassan.

Both Nigeria (#35) and England were prevented from advancing out of Division 2 by Ukraine, while Portugal zeroed in on Canada who’d reached the quarter’s over Slovenia (#34).

So with all these teams doing better than the U.S., what are Danny Seemiller’s thoughts regarding the “revolution” that’s needed? Predominately they’re two-fold. One, we need more native-American/American-citizen players (so he’s 100% in favor of this new ITTF ruling discouraging foreigners from “taking over” teams). And two, we need professional players. At the moment, he says, we have neither.

Danny feels it was a waste of $25,000 to send a U.S. Team to the World’s. Instead it should have been used to begin to build “in-house” incentives for U.S. players to seriously pursue the Sport. Tournaments in our country need to offer prize money solely for U.S. citizens. If the money’s there, if a player can say, ”I made $40,000 last year—it’s not heaven, but it’s a start,” the U.S. will eventually become a power; its players financially able to go to major tournaments abroad. When the well-trained foreigners, who have built up their games in other countries, dominate play here, it’s too discouraging for our young hopefuls—they’re apt to opt out into another sport.

Players have to make a good living, or Table Tennis can’t be promoted. And we sure do need to see it promoted. Most parents certainly won’t encourage their children to forgo college to train as they do in Europe when there appears to be no financial future for them in the Sport.
Danny says the players have to have spirit, have to be competitive. I myself was struck by a recent Profile of 21-year-old Hungarian International Janos Jakab that appeared in the Sept.-Oct., 2007 issue of Table Tennis Illustrated. He’s had advantages, has learned discipline: his father’s an English teacher, his three older sisters and younger brother are all academic-minded, and he himself has been a serious student. He already knows what he wants to be after his table tennis playing career is over: a Sports Manager. For now, though, he’s a professional trying to improve his World #81 ranking.

So how’s he doing? Could a U.S. player finishing high school, and that player’s parents, see him as a role model? Would Seemiller, producing players in South Bend, see him so? He’s got a big head start on our guys: was the 2004 European Youth Champion; and just recently the 2007 Pro Tour Grand Final U-21 winner.
Here’s what he has to say—and where he’s at is where I wish, somehow, any young aspiring U.S. player with guts could be:

“Playing on the ITTF Pro Tour has proved invaluable. There are many reasons why it has helped: you get to know other players; you adapt to playing on a court mat when you’ve only been used to solid floors; you learn to cope with different situations like food, weather, and the way the ball reacts on different tables and in different halls….Also, seeing the best players you learn from them….
There is a huge difference [between the senior and junior players] mentally, technically, and especially in self-discipline….The seniors follow the tactics during a game with greater accuracy than juniors; they know better how to exploit weaknesses; the best seniors are calmer, wiser, emotionally stronger; they know how to respond at various stages in a table tennis match….
Table tennis is complex; natural talent comes out at some level but hard work and determination are much more important factors.”