Month: June 2016
Next League Night Postponed
This is just to let everyone know that, due to summer vacations (I’m leaving next week for a 3-week getaway – and some others have plans, too), that we will postpone league nights until the month of August and decide at that point when to resume. Enjoy your summer!!
Steven Alfred is now the highest-rated SCTTC player ever at 2307!
Players, next time you come to the club, be sure to congratulate Steven Alfred who last week won the Over 40 years-of-age tournament in Fremont taking out the amazing Avi Schmidt in the process 12-10 in the fifth in the semis and then double-winged power looper Kevin Au in the final. This earned Steven $200 for first place and a new rating of 2307, the highest rating of any regular player at our club going back to our founding in 1991. Wow.
With Mickey Boyle’s Nationals Title last year and Charlie Aebersold’s highest rating of 2152, our little old club just keeps getting better and better! In case you aren’t familiar with USA Table Tennis ratings, the lowest is 0 points and the highest rated players in the country are about 2700 to 2800. Coach Jim reached a highest rating of 1825. Mickey is closing in on that. Most USA players dream of breaking the 2000 barrier, but it takes a lot of practice and focus and playing tournaments (you win and lose points based on wins and losses in tournaments).
Here’s a short report from the Alameda tournament, “Over 40 – On the opposite side of the age bracket events, we gave the adults a respite from the juniors in Over 40. Despite a few Warriors-inspired defaults (oops, sorry, they were all just tired after the morning events) the die-hard players who stuck around created plenty of their own entertainment. Steven Alfred, who came all the way up from Santa Cruz TTC for the tournament, played the longest match of the day against former Alameda coach Avishy Schmidt in the semifinals. Really, people were wondering just how many matches they were playing, but in the end they assured us that they only played one, with Alfred ultimately emerging as the winner, winning 12-10 in the fifth set. The other semifinal was much quicker, with Topspin’s Kevin Au overcoming Alameda’s Kock Loe in three close sets. Ultimately, Alfred’s patience was richly rewarding, as he beat Kevin in the final to claim the $200 prize. Kevin’s $100 check consoled him as well and we still got them home in time to catch the last half of the Warriors game.”
Way to go Steven! Thanks for bringing home the gold for the club!
Results for our first Doubles League Night Thursday, June 2, 2016
This was a super fun league night with a lucky 13 doubles teams playing on four tables and our first mixed-doubles event and first double-elimination format for tables with three teams.
A little housekeeping: if you are not receiving the club emails, please send me your email address at jim @ jimlangley dot net
I want to give a big thanks to David Bergevin for preparing the beautiful match sheets for all the tables and Jane for bringing some tasty treats. And mega thanks go to Wireless who actually didn’t have a teammate to play doubles with – yet still went to the trouble to (I’m still not sure how he did this) bring a large-screen laptop to the club and somehow stream live the first Warriors game! It was awesome having our own little doubles world championship while being able to watch the Warriors play in theirs!
Table 1 consisted of the best 3 teams: PD and Shrikant from the Monterey/Seaside club, Steve (also from the M/S club with Mickey, and Joey and Victor.
Table 2 (Coed-Division) saw Pat and Barry, Suzanne and George, Crystal and Ari and Sharon and Jane battling it out.
Table 3 was Craig and Jim versus Bob and Ron and Ed and Ray. Great to have Jon back in the house!
Table 4 saw some exciting action with Max and Paco, Sebastian and Willie and Thom and Charlie driving down from their secret Bonny Doon ping pong training camp.
Because I was playing I didn’t get to watch enough of the matches, but I did see that Ari and Crystal had an epic match with Sharon and Jane that went to deuce in the 5th with Sharon and Jane coming back from down 8-10 to winning.
On table 1, I enjoyed a Victor/Joey vs PD/Shrikant game, where, with a series of perfect Victor chops and Joey loops, their team came back from a 0-8 deficit to tie it up before PD and Shrikant rallied to take control.
Meanwhile on table 4, the Dooners Thom and Charlie were the only teammates with cool matching ping pong shirts and most of the matches went 5 games with Sebastian showing his stellar placement skills from all his tournament play.
On our table (3), it was great having Bob and Jon back after injuries have kept them from playing for some time. They both hit some nice winners.
Champions on the night were:
Table 1: PD & Shrikant
Table 2: Pat & Barry
Table 3: Craig & Jim
Table 4: Max & Paco
Thanks to everyone who participated!