Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012

Friends, rivals at table tennis trials

U.S. to face Canadians

There's a secret to setting up a 12-player, round-robin table tennis tournament like the U.S. Olympic table tennis trials last weekend at Bond Park Community Center in Cary.

Since the American table tennis community is so small, there's a good chance players who practice together or those who have a coach/pupil relationship will meet. Teenagers Lily Zhang and Ariel Hsing belong to the same table tennis club near San Francisco and have a regular Friday night practice session. And in El Monte, Calif., outside Los Angeles, 15-year-old Erica Wu is a member of the Gao Jun Table Tennis Club.

Gao, 43, a veteran of three Olympics, defeated Wu on Friday in an entertaining 4-1 match. Gao went ahead 3-0, Wu won a game 11-4, and Gao came back to win 11-7. In the day's last match, Hsing defeated clubmate Zhang 4-0 in the North Carolina extension of their regular Friday session.

Roman Tinyszin, who has been a table tennis umpire in the U.S. since 1992 and internationally for the last 10 years, is the head tournament referee. He's in charge of making sure racquets are flat, rubber is free of foreign substances and players who have a vested interest in each other don't match-up late on Saturday or on Sunday in the 11-match tournament.

It can be tricky, he said, since tournament directors like suspense on the last day, but that's secondary to making sure the results of the Olympic trials are unimpeachable.

"The ITTF has its guidelines, but we need to be aware of the relationships between the players so no one dumps a match," he said. "We try to pair them up no later than the fifth match."

Luckily for USA Table Tennis, Gao already handled Wu. And even though Hsing said her friendship with Zhang doesn't factor into their matches, their early meeting avoided any issues on Sunday.

Gao finished the tournament with a perfect 11-0 mark. She and teammates Hsing, Zhang and Wu, who all finished with 9-2 records, will face a Canadian team in Cary on April 20-22.

On the men's side, Michael Landers, from Long Island, N.Y. will lead a contingent of four American men against Canada's four top players in April.

Landers, 17, came through the grueling three-day U.S. Olympic trials with a 9-2 record. His three teammates - Barney Reed, Timothy Wang and Adam Hugh - each tied with 8-3 marks. A tiebreaker separated them from Maryland's Peter Li, 19, who also finished at 8-3.

"I'm just really happy," said Landers, finally able to address reaching his goal after speaking conservatively all weekend. "I'd be just as happy if I were fourth, third or second, but it does feel great to come out first."

Reed advanced because of his head-to-head record against the four players with three losses, and Wang and Hugh had the best games-lost ratio among the three remaining players.

The team only came together at the end of a 10-minute stretch in the packed community center. During those final minutes, Li, the 2011 national champion, watched intently, calculating his chances of making the team as points were won or lost in the matches between Wang and Hugh and between Han Xiao and Landers.

At 2:47, when Landers beat Xiao 4-2 after a 12-10 final game, Li's hopes dropped.

When Wang went ahead 3-2 on Hugh just two minutes later, Li asked for a pen and paper with which to calculate his position.

Within 15 minutes, when Wang completed a 3-0 final day, beating Hugh 11-4 to win 4-2, Li crumpled his scribble-filled paper and stuffed it in his pocket, dejected. His chances were dashed, and the team was set.