The  2004 San Diego Team Open

San Diego, CA · May 8-9, 2004

By Sungill Kim

The Championship VCI Team. Left: Tuan Le; Right: Ramin Samari. Photos by Sungill Kim ©2004

San Diego is known for its sunny beaches and beautiful weather, and on Mother’s Day weekend it was also the place for beautiful table tennis. The inaugural San Diego Team Open was under way!

The San Diego Team Open is a two day tournament featuring Davis Cup format matches between teams of 2~4 players. For those that are not familiar with the Davis Cup format, a match between teams consists of two singles matches, a doubles match, and then cross over singles (if necessary). Since multiple players are involved, the strategy of setting your singles players and doubles players makes it a very fun format.

Before I get into the fun details of the tournament, I’d like to take the time to thank our sponsors – Paddle Palace, Zeropong, Barona Casino & Resorts, and Thai Café. We couldn’t have done it without you, thanks!

There were 18 teams competing at the tournament, and there were many colorful team names (more on that later). The top 4 teams went straight to division one, and the rest battled it out for the 4 remaining spots in preliminary round play, which took place on Saturday morning. The matches played out to form with no upsets. So, the divisions were set with the top eight teams competing for the $900 Division 1 top prize, and 10 teams competing for the $300 Division 2 prize. The matches were fun and exciting, with teammates cheering for each other all over the gym. I’ll try my best to share the action with you, and I’ll start with division two.

The runner-up Little Saigon Team. Left: Khanh Duong/Quoc Nguyen; Right: Tri Dinh. Photos by Sungill Kim ©2004

Division 2

The ten teams in Division 2 were split into 2 groups of 5. The teams in each group played a RR, and the top two teams advanced to the semi-finals. Obviously, with 5 teams in a division, it’s a long tough road to the top, and the teams slogged it out with play going from Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning. When the dust settle, the 4 teams left standing were “Filipino Duo” (rating 3901), “Chicano and the White Guy” (3962), “Davison Athletic Club” (4188), and “Team 360” (4034). The team rating is the sum of the rating of the top two players.

Semi-final number 1 was between “Filipino Duo” and “Chicano and the White Guy”. If you thought there would be two players in team “Filipino Duo”, well, you would be wrong – there were three players, and not all Filipino. However, if you thought team “Chicano and the White Guy” consisted of a Hispanic guy and a Caucasian guy, well, you’d be correct. At least one team was easily recognizable.

The key showdown in this match was the first one. The Ron Spenser (1997) vs. Luis Houed (2057) match was ace vs. ace, as both teams put their cards on the table early. Ron jumped out to a 2 games to none lead, but Luis battle back to tie the match at 2-2. Game 5 was a fist pumping, cho-shouting battle, and Ron came out on top, grabbing the momentum that would lead his team to victory and a spot in the finals.

The second semi-final match was between Davison Athletic Club (Dennis Cobb and Grantley Charles) and Team 360 (Koji Kido, Mike Gift, and Kamran Azimzadeh). The Davison Athletic Club was the long-distance award winner, traveling all the way from Michigan for the tournament. I think Davison Athletic Club member Grantley Charles must have had some kind of wireless data service because he kept giving me regular weather updates. For example, he’d say, “It’s 50 degrees and raining in Michigan, but it’s 80 and sunny in San Diego.” This went on for the entire weekend.

So, the local San Diego players of Team 360 would seem to have the home field advantage, but their second strongest player Mike Gift (1960) was out with an injury. That left ace Koji Kido (2074) and Kamran Azimzadeh (1864) to carry the load. Koji did his job as the ace, and took both his singles matches. However, it wasn’t enough as the Davison Athletic Club took the other two singles and the crucial doubles to win 3-2. Bad luck Team 360, but the DAC is going to the finals.

Going into the finals, the Davison Athletic Club were heavy favorites over Filipino Duo. After all, the DAC’s team rating was almost 200 points higher. But Filipino Duo had two things going for them. First of all, Filipino Duo was a hometown team, and so the crowd was behind them. In fact, Ron Spenser is the junior program’s head coach, so the San Diego juniors were definitely rooting for their coach. Secondly, the DAC only had two players. That meant that both players had to play all their matches for two whole days, and so they were both dead tired by the time finals came around.

Match one was Dennis Cobb (2132) versus Ron Spenser. Ron was pumped for this match, but Dennis had too much for him and took the match 3-1. The DAC was off to a good start.

Match two was Grantley Charles (2056) versus Priscilla Umel (1904). I knew this would be an interesting match, because even though Grantley is the higher rated player, his style plays right into Priscilla’s strengths. Grantley always plays a very physically demanding game. There are no cheap points in Grantley's matches; every point is a hard earned loop. Because of this he always cramps up towards the end of tournaments, and when that happens, in order to end things quickly he starts cranking up the power on his loops to maximum. True to form, Grantley just started ripping fantastic forehands and backhands. Unluckily for him, that was just what Priscilla needed, since she’s a great blocker with both her forehand and her backhand. It was like Grantley’s loops were hitting a stone wall, because they weren’t getting through. Priscilla and her fantastic blocking pulled the upset, and things were looking up for the Filipino Duo.

The doubles match up would now be the crucial factor. With Grantley cramping up, it was unlikely he’d be able to play well in his remaining singles, and so if the Davison Athletic Club lost this doubles it would basically be lights out for them. Knowing this, Ron Spenser showed some wonderful sportsmanship by offering Grantley some medicine for his cramping (Ron keeps it handy, since he often cramps up). It was a nice gesture between two fine players, but once the doubles started it was a no holds barred battle. The DAC came out on top and grabbed the momentum back.

As predicted, in the following singles, an exhausted Grantley was no match for the pumped up Ron. Ron was on fire, crushing backhands from way off the court. So we go to the fifth match, Dennis vs. Priscilla.

Dennis was the clear favorite (he’s rated 200 points higher), but Priscilla was on fire. Having the crowd behind her must have helped. She fought back from a 0-2 deficit to tie the match at 2-2. We’re going to game 5! This is what it’s all about, 2 out, bottom of the ninth, oh sorry, wrong sport. Game 5 of match 5 went to … Dennis Cobb! He pulls it out, and the victory goes to the Davison Athletic Club. Congratulations all round, not least to the hard fighting runner ups, the Filipino Duo.

Juniors

Originally, there was no junior event scheduled for this tournament, but since there were two teams of even strength, I thought it would be a good experience for the young players to play a match. Both teams were up for the challenge, so I set up a match between “Tagalog Takeover” and “San Gabriel Valley TTC Juniors”. The members of Tagalog Takeover are with the San Diego TTA’s  junior program.

Unexpectedly, this friendly (but sanctioned) match turned into a 2 hour epic battle with deuce games and 5 game matches all over the place. Wow, these juniors were serious! In the end, it was a 3-2 come-from-behind victory for the visiting team over the home team. Congrats to Mariella, Sam, and Ivan of the San Gabriel Valley TTC Juniors.

Division One

Now to the serious stuff. Division 1 featured eight excellent teams, and they would play a SE for the top prize of $900. Matches were now best 4 out of 7.

Quarterfinal #1

This match featured the number one seeded team “LA” with Rudy Miranda (2371) and Guo Hui “Coffey” Lu (2361) versus “Flips with Guacamole” featuring David Umel Jr. (2239), David Umel Sr. (2066), and Earl Alto (2026). In the opening match, David Jr. went up against Rudy. David put up quite a fight even going up 2-1 against the much more experienced Rudy. However, Rudy eventually pulled it together and took the match 4-2. That was Flips with Guacamole’s best and last chance for an upset, as LA took the match 3-0.

Quarterfinal #2

This quarterfinal was definitely one of youth versus experience. The youth and energy was provided by Mark Wei (2122) and Jeff Lin Huang (2152) of the team “San Gabriel Valley TTC Cadets”. The experienced team was “VCI” featuring Tuan Le (2327) and Ramin Samari (2345). The youngsters were quite feisty taking several games, but it’s the match score that counts, and VCI won in a shut out 3-0.

Quarterfinal #3

This match pitted the UC San Diego Tritons versus Double Trouble of Seattle. The Tritons (Tom Plaisted 2232, Kevin Phung 2169, and Wallace Liu 2115) were the first to find out why Sakda Timsuwan (2369) and Petri Heinonen (2280) called themselves Double Trouble. Sakda plays with inverted and short pips, and constantly flips his racket. Petri is a classic style chopper with long pips and short pips. What a nightmare for the Tritons! In the end, Double Trouble was too much trouble for the Tritons, and the duo from Seattle advanced to the semi-finals.

Quarterfinal #4

This match is was the crowd pleasing main event of the quarterfinal rounds. We had two evenly matched teams (the #4 and #5 seeds) going at it toe-to-toe. The #4 seeded team was Southern California Vietnamese TTC with Tung D. Phan (2319), Loc Ngo (2293), and John Thach Tran (2279).  Amazingly, this team featured three left-handed players! And what a painfully long team name. Watching the team play, I couldn’t help but think that they should have called themselves “Bulletproof Monks”. That would have been so much easier (see photo). The #5 team was Little Saigon, featuring Khanh Duong (2359), Tri Dinh (2221) and Quoc Nguyen (2110).

Enough with the nice introductions, let’s jump right into the action. Match number one was Khanh Duong versus John Thach Tran, and it was a beauty. Both players played well from the get go, and there were no cheap points. John played a great control and spin game. He made no misses, and he made his opponent work hard for each point. Khanh plays with all out attacking loops with his forehand and soft touch drop blocks with the backhand. Khanh must have nerves of steel. No matter how hard his opponent loops, he drop the block in with the softest touch; never giving his opponent pace to feed off. But his technique is dangerous -- one mistake popup and he sets up a kill for his opponent. 

It’s a good thing Khanh’s touch was good this match, because John’s loop was definitely on. The pendulum of victory swung on the outcome of each point. The game scores tell it all, after five game Khanh was up 3 –2, with scores of 5-11, 11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9. A couple of points swing either way and the match would have been over by now.  The battle for the sixth game was almost a match in itself. Khanh tasted victory, but John was not done yet. The players slugged it out on each long, long point, transitioning smoothly from offense to defense, and then back to offense. Nobody backed down, and going to deuce was only fitting for these two, and oh how sweet it was. There are deuce games, and then there are deuce games. This was a truly amazing 19-17 deuce game victory for John, as he stared defeat in the eye and won to play another game.

Could Khanh recover from this emotional body blow? His nerves of steel would not fail him, as in the 7-th game he remained calm and executed his game with precision. John’s 6-th game heroics were all for naught, as Khanh puts his team Little Saigon up one match to none. What a start!

Match two was just as thrilling. Little Saigon was represented by Tri Dinh, and the SCVTTC (I’ll keep this name short) put forth Tung D. Phan. The players got off to a slow start. Tri was called for a service fault early in the first game, and this seem to rattle him as he never got going in the game. Tung took the first game easily.

In the second game, it was Tung’s turn to struggle, as he lost 4-11. It was only in the third game that things started to heat up, and the rallies got longer. In the end, Tung took the third 11-9, and we finally had a match on out hands.

The crowd knew that Tri had to come out strong in the 4-th, as he did not want to be down 1-3. He came out with this sense of urgency, and played strong. He was looking good and very confident. It really looked like the tide had turned in his favor, and he was in good shape with a 10-8 lead. If he could just get this game he’d probably have the momentum to take the match. But Tung also knew the importance of the situation and fought hard to deuce it up. Both players were pumped to play this important deuce game, and there was hard playing and hard cho-ing. Tri had 2 more game points but could not finish Tung off. Tung was the more efficient as he took advantage of his first game point, and now held a commanding 3-1 lead.

What a devastating setback for Tri! He was playing so well, but he lost! Could he recover? He knew he could. Deep down inside, somehow he knew he was going to win. In games five, six, and seven, Tri went about calmly and methodically destroying his opponent. There was no place for emotion, only efficient execution. Tri pulled off the comeback, winning another close one 4-3.

Wow, two great matches already! The two first singles  matches took up an hour and a half, and we hadn’t even played the doubles! Would the doubles also be close? You bet. Little Saigon’s doubles team was Khanh Duong and doubles specialist Quoc Nguyen. Quoc’s rated 2110, but in he plays doubles better than any 2300 player I’ve seen. The  SCVTTC knows this and came out prepared for a battle with John Tran and Loc Ngo.

The doubles was no different from the two previous singles. That means, (a) it went the full seven games; (b) there were 3 deuce games, and (c) Little Saigon won again.

What a nail-biting victory of Little Saigon! The final score was 3-0, but a couple of bounces here and there, and it could well have been a  0-3 defeat. Congratulations, Little Saigon, you’re going to the semis!

Semifinal #1

This match pitted southern California veterans VCI (Tuan Le and Ramin Samari) against the dark horse team from Seattle, Double Trouble (Sakda Timsuwan and Petri Heinonen). Double Trouble had their way against the young Tritons of UCSD, but how would their tricky style hold up against the experienced VCI? If Double Trouble could pull the upset here, it would be like sending an earthquake through the SoCal table-tennis landscape.

Match one was Sakda versus Tuan. Sakda came out with fiery intensity, but “The Doctor” Tuan Le was too experienced for him. Dr. Le adapted quickly to Sakda’s pips and calmly went about getting victory one for his team.

Match two of Ramin versus Petri was much the same. Petri played awesome chopping defense, but it wasn’t enough to bother Ramin. Petri lacked the counter attack to challenge Ramin, and so Ramin just looped his way to victory.

Doubles went much the same way. VCI won 4-2, and with that punched their tickets to the Finals. Good job, VCI!

Semifinal #2

Semifinals #2 was LA (Rudy Miranda and Guo Hui “Coffey” Lu) against underdogs Little Saigon. Match one was Coffey Lu versus Tri Dinh. Coffey’s performance in this game was incredible. Basically his style is to deny his opponent anything good to open up with -- all his shots are placed delicately low, short and away. To the untrained eye, it would look like he was “doing nothing”, yet he completely dominated the match to win 4-0. Team LA was off to a good start, but things didn’t go as well in match two. That match was Rudy Miranda versus Khanh Duong. For some reason, Rudy was very tentative and did not play his usual aggressive style. On points when he loosened up and let his loops just go with the flow he would win, but more often then not he seemed to be holding back. Just that small hesitation was the difference in the game, as Khanh took advantage to pull out a close 4-3 win.

That was a huge win for Little Saigon. However, they still had a mountain to climb because now they had to face the lefty-righty combo doubles team featuring two 2350 players (Coffey is the lefty).  But as SDTTA president Art Pintado said, “Never bet against Quoc Nguyen.”

True to form double specialist Quoc leads Little Saigon to a huge doubles victory (4-2). They are now up 2-1, and they need only take one of the remaining 2 singles. Their game plan is going perfectly – going into a possible elimination match Little Saigon has their ace Khanh Duong going up against Coffey Lu.

Knowing what’s at stake, both players brought their best games to the table. Coffey’s soft drop game alone was not enough against the speed of Khanh, so Coffey busted out his mid-range looping. The match was close with both players showcasing great offense and touch defense. The players basically traded games, but Coffey was clutch and took the most important one -- the seventh – at 14-12. What a win!

The teams were now tied 2-2, and going into the final match momentum was with team LA . LA would have Rudy Miranda going up against Tri Dinh. Rudy is rated 150 points higher and was heavily favored. Tri had no intention of backing down; he knew he’d been playing great this tournament. I guess sometimes it’s easier to be the underdog, as Tri came out loose and ready. Rudy was tight. It seemed he was just searching for his rhythm the whole match. The only thing that kept things close was his veteran savvy, but in the end it was not enough against Tri’s confidence. Tri pulls the huge upset and leads his team to the finals. Good job, Tri!

Open Final

For the team VCI, the road to the finals was smooth; both their victories were 3-0 blowouts. Not so for the team Little Saigon, their path to the finals was treacherous, as they had to pull out two huge upsets to get to the finals. Could they pull another? Let’s find out!

Match one was Tuan Le vs. Khanh Duong. Tuan came out completely flat for the first game. I mean, he was missing everything. Khanh’s attitude was that since he was getting free points, he would put in the least effort possible. Why waste energy and reveal strategy? It worked for one game, as basically Tuan gave Khanh the first game for free.

Game two started off just the same – Tuan was missing, and Khanh was doing nothing. But I was getting this feeling that even thought Khanh was leading, he was in trouble. At least Tuan was getting loose, Khanh was not getting anything going. As if to prove me right, about half way through the game, Tuan was now getting in things in gear. He attacks were now landing, and Khanh was on his heels. But after a few points like that, Khanh decides, “OK, I’ll start playing now” and the battle was now on. As both players turned on their offense, a killshot-fest was now on. Long rallies were not in the making, as the defenses could not adjust to the sudden offensive outburst of both players. The points may not have been long, but the game was. The final score was 18-16 in favor as Khanh. What an escape. This ugly duckling of a match had now developed into a beauty.

Khanh now had a 2-0, and was in great shape. Unfortunately, Tuan actually had the momentum. Khanh started to play conservatively, and Tuan just kept at it. It was only a matter of time before Tuan tied the match up 2-2. The pressure was now squarely back on Khanh, but he was not about to squander the match away. He took game 5 by a score of 11-6, to regain the lead 3-2.

Things were now getting tense. This first match was crucial. As underdogs, Little Saigon absolutely had to have this match. They were in good shape, but if there’s one thing special about, Tuan Le is that he knows how to win. He always understands the situation and what to do. Down 2-3, he calmly went about his business to tie things back at 3-3. At this point, I turned to Tri and said, “Tri, why does your team’s matches always go seven games?”

Game 7 was close, but Khanh didn’t look good at all. In the quarters and semis, he won by playing hard and aggressively. In this match, he seemed to rely too much on cunning and savvy instead. It was not a winning strategy against the veteran Tuan, as Tuan took game 7 at 11-9 to complete the incredible comeback.

What a devastating loss to Little Saigon! They were in such a good shape, but the opportunity just slipped out of their hands. “Not to worry,” says Tri, “I got it.”

OK, he didn’t actually say that but he must have thought that, because he came out on fire. Tri (rated 2221) just came out and smoked Ramin  (rated 2345). Ramin couldn’t believe it; whatever he tried Tri just ripped it. Forehand loop? RIP. Backhand loop? RIP.  Serve? RIP? Couterloop? RIP. How about fishing off the table? RIP. There was no answer.  Tri was just a fist-pumping, cho-shouting, forehand-ripping man on a mission. In truly astonishing fashion, Tri takes the match in a blowout 4-0 and brings his team right back into it. Sorry, Ramin, best be preparing for your doubles…

Going into the doubles, I’m sure both teams knew how crucial the doubles match was. Little Saigon lived and died by the doubles. The main reason they were able to pull upset after upset was because they were undefeated in doubles so far. If they could take this, their game plan would be going perfectly. On the other hand, VCI knows this, and they would do everything in their power to stop things going Little Saigon’s way.

Little Saigon starts out slow, with a lot of unforced errors from Khanh Duong. It looked to me that he hadn’t put the painful singles loss behind him yet. VCI takes game one easily at 11-6. In game 2, lead by Quoc Nguyen’s aggressive but steady play, Little Saigon even things up by taking game two in a close one 11-9. Both teams were now settled down, and play was very even – the teams basically  traded games with VCI taking game 3 and 5 , and Little Saigon taking game 4. VCI broke the trend by taking game 6, and thus won 4-2. The doubles outcome now put tremendous pressure on Little Saigon!

Match four was Tuan Le for VCI and Tri Dinh for Little Saigon. Going into this match, I decided the winner of this match would have to be the tournament MVP. Tuan was undefeated coming into this match, and Tri had been pulling out huge victories for his team. Well, this match was the big one. It’s the culmination of 2 days of intense table-tennis. With the title in the balance, who would be the hero for his team? Well, only thing to do is sit back and enjoy.

Right out of the gate, Tri was pumped for this match. The adrenaline rush from his previous victory was still there, and he was a like thoroughbred rearing to go. But Tuan had a plan from that. He knew Tri was on fire, and he didn’t want to fuel the flames. Right from the first few points I could tell that Tuan was going to make this match as boring as possible. There would be no exciting rallies for Tri feed off emotionally. Tuan used his calm and poise to make sure that all his shots were short, low and slow.  He kept all the points tight, so that neither player could open up. Tri was really frustrated because Tuan was not giving him the pace he wanted. He really wanted to “go for it”, but there just wasn’t anything to go for. Eventually, he’d go for a tough open up, but more often than not Tuan got the point.

In this fashion, Tuan took the first game easily 11-4. In the second game, it was the same thing. Tuan was forcing Tri into going for tough loops at awkward timings, but now they were landing. It seemed like Tri was getting them in by sheer force of will. Tri now had some momentum, and Tuan had a fight on his hands. But even then, Tuan did not succumb to the temptation to open things up. He kept to his game plan and battled it out into deuce. What a deuce game! 18-16 was the final score, and Tuan pulled it out. This really broke Tri’s back. Tri had to have this game in order to change the flow of the match, but Tuan got it and that propelled him to ultimate victory, four games to love.

That was game, set, match, and championship to VCI! Congrats to Ramin Samari and Tuan Le, you guys took it all. The MVP has to be Tuan Le; the man simply knows how to win, and I don’t think there’s a higher compliment than that! Congrats also to Little Saigon, for putting a great effort and exciting show for all the spectators. You guys did a great job also!

Well, congrats and thanks to all the players who played in the inaugural San Diego Team Open. We at the SDTTA sincerely hope you all had a great time! Also many thanks to the many SDTTA volunteers, without whom none of this would be possible. Thanks for a great job!

Lastly, I need to announce the best team name award. The candidates were “Game Point Bandits”, “Flips with Guacamole”, and “Sultans of Spin”. The envelope please, and the winner is – drum roll – “Sultans of Spin”! Congrats to Gerry Chua and Alicia Wei. You win by virtue of the fact that the tournament director is a big Dire Straits fan. ;-)    

Division 1

§         1^st: “VCI,” Ramin Samari and Tuan Le

§         2^nd: “Little Saigon,” Khanh Duong, Tri Dinh and Quoc Nguyen.

§         Semi-finalist: “LA,” Rudy Miranda and Guo Hui “Coffey” Lu.

§         Semi-finalist: “Double Trouble,” Sakda Timsuwan and Petri Heinonen.

§         5^th: “Flips with Guacamole,” David Umel Jr., David Umel Sr., and Earl Alto.

Divison 2

§         1^st: “Davison Athletic Club,” Dennis Cobb and Grantley Charles.

§         2^nd: “Filipino Duo,” Ron Spenser, Priscilla Umel, DJ Alto.

§         3^rd: “Chicano and the White Guy,” Luis Houed and Derrick Cone.

§         4^th: “Team 360,” Koji Kido, Mike Gift, and Kamran Azimzadeh.