August 4, 2008
North American Championships - U.S. Open
Sylvan Guo
by Sylvan Guo
July 2-5, 2008 - This year the North American Championships were held in Las Vegas, Nevada in conjunction with the US Open. This critical tournament would decide the four cadet girls and four cadet boys from North America who would qualify for the ITTF World Cadet Challenge in Sweden later this year. In other words, this was a very important tournament for me.
As pre-tournament warm-up, I joined a two-week training camp at ICC in Milpitas, California run by Rajul Sheth. This year 5 boys and 4 girls from the Indian Junior National Team came to ICC and joined the same training camp as me so I was lucky to train with them. Most of them are at the 2200-2600 level.
I arrived at Las Vegas on Tuesday July 1st, but the real tournament started on Wednesday. Coming in to this tournament, I knew that I had to play the preliminary round robin to qualify for the final round robin. The top two cadet finishers last year and four Canadians (who qualified preliminaries in Canada) would all be directly qualified into the final round robin. This was a slight disadvantage because this would only leave 2 spots altogether.
However, the good news was that 2 of the Canadian girls did not come, leaving 4 spots open. That meant that out of the three-person round robin I was in, I had to place at least second. On Wednesday at 9:00 AM, I (B seed) played Isabella Chen (A seed) first. The first game I played nervous and lost, mostly because I was not used to her two sided pips. Later, I started to gain more confidence in my shots and won the game 3-1. Next, Natalie Sun (C seed) who is about 200 points lower than Isabella played Isabella and surprisingly won 3-0. At that point, I already knew that I could move on to the final Round Robin but I decided to keep trying so I could have a better Final Round Robin draw. Natalie and I played a close match with her winning the first game at deuce. Many of the games we played were close. Thankfully I won 3-2. In the other preliminary Round Robin group, Lily Zhang (A seed), Erica Wu (B seed) and Grace Kim(C seed) were to play for the top 2 spots to place in the final Round Robin. Erica did not show up, and therefore defaulted so Lily and Grace were automatically seeded into the final Round Robin.
Now for the Final Round Robin I was placed in the same Round Robin with Ariel Hsing, Roxanne Deslauriers (Canadian) and Grace Kim (C seed from other preliminary round robin). The other Round Robin included Li Quan Ly (Canadian), Anne Deng, Lily Zhang and Natalie Sun. Firstly I played with Ariel and won 3-0. Grace Kim did not show up for any of her matches and was defaulted so this Round Robin was between me, Ariel, and Roxanne. Next, Ariel played Roxanne and won 3-0. I played Roxanne next and won the match 3-0. Consequently, Ariel (2nd) and I (1st) would move on to tomorrow's crossovers. In the other group, Lily Zhang (1st) and Anne Deng (2nd) seeded in the top two. The next day we played crossovers and I beat Anne 4-3. Next I played Ariel, (who previously beat Lily) and lost 4-1 and received the title for second in North America Cadet Girl's Singles.
This tournament was definitely no walk in the park so I would like to thank a few people for supporting me. Firstly I would like to thank my parents for taking time out of their work schedule to drive me to Milpitas and supporting me at Las Vegas. Secondly I would like to thank my practice partners at this tournament: Vincent Tai, Parry Husbands, Masaaki Tajima, Xi Guo, Steven Wang, Johnny Huang, Sean C. Lee, and Nancy. Also I would like to thank my coaches Dennis Davis, Xi Guo, Steven Wang, Nelson Yu, Gao Lin Tang, Andy Liang, and Rajul Sheth. But the coach that I would like to thank the most is Masaaki Tajima who coached me for every North American Championship match. He always kept me on my toes and taught me many important lessons like playing hard even when you are the underdog. Last but not least, I would like to thank my sponsor Butterfly for supporting me throughout this tournament!
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