By: Jeff Nguyen
Photo Credit: Tairen Deng
The 4th Annual Kenneth Beauchamp Summer Open 3-Star tournament was held last weekend on July 29th with 93 participants in an event based format. 324 matches took place across seven categories: Open Singles, 4 rated events, and 2 double events. Our tournaments are getting VERY popular. This one was full 5 weeks before the start date. Make sure to register ASAP for the next one once it goes up on Omnipong!
Ken Beauchamp founded our club in 1975 where members at the time played in Belmont Hall inside of DKR Stadium at the University of Texas at Austin. Ken was a friendly, hard working man that would frequently talk your ear off. He loved the sport of table tennis very much and devoted a tremendous amount of time teaching and introducing table tennis to countless numbers of folks. In the early 2010's as President of ATTC, he and the Board of Directors decided to move to the current facility where we are now near the corner of Burnet Road and US-183. Ken spent hundreds of hours, along with many of our members, lending his hands to physically build our club - laying the foundations, installing plumbing, screwing down flooring, wiring the building, installing insulation, painting the walls - he had a hand in it all. Because of his tremendous contribution to table tennis for the City of Austin and the State of Texas we commemorate him annually for our Summer Open. You can learn more about him here.
Huge thanks to our volunteers for helping this tournament run smoothly. Keeping a tournament with close to 100 participants moving along is a difficult task. Major cudos to Tuan Tran for running the tournament and quickly publishing the tournament results. Also, big thanks to Tairen Deng for taking so many great photos that are on display in this article. It's tough to get that perfect action shot and he captured quite a few!!!
Some interesting items at a glance:
3 US National Champions participated in our tournament:
2023 040 Men's Doubles and 2014 Men's Singles US National Champion - Jimmy Butler (Houston)
2023 U1600 US National Champion - Jung Ho Park (DFW)
2023 U1500 US National Champion - Diego Almeida (South Texas)
Samuel Tao
18-1 record
Won 63 sets - lost 9 sets
won both U2100 and U1900 events
Defeated 2x 2000's and 1x 2100
Sahaj Ramachandran
8-0 record
Won 24 sets - lost 1 set
Won U1600
INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENTS
U2100 RR
1st - Samuel Tao
3rd/4th - Swar Patel
3rd/4th - Cesar Serna
U1900 RR
1st - Samuel Tao
2nd - Swar Patel
U1600 RR
1st - Sahaj Ramachandran
2nd - Sikander Aggarwal
3rd/4th - Aaryan Polisetty
U1300 RR
1st - Kartikaya Pershad
3rd/4th - Justin Kim
U4000 Doubles
3rd/4th - Tai Ly / Susie Teng
3rd/4th - Samuel Tao / Swar Patel
U3200 Doubles
1st - Annayya Savadatti / Kartikaya Pershad
TOP GAINERS LIST
HUGE GAINS for Samuel Tao!!! 300 points in one sitting where he went 18-1 with laser focus. Samuel skipped 2000, skipped 2100 and became the first ATTC Junior Program student to reach 2200 and joins a group of ATTC members where only 5 people have reached 2200. Before this year, Li-Feng "Uncle" Liu reached 2200 11 years ago in 2012.
Justin Kim made it to the Semi-Finals of the U1300 where he did not drop a set until his 3rd/4th place finish - that's 5 matches, 15 sets! Justin upset a player that was 200 points higher and also logged wins against two other players that were 100 points higher. Big upsets and big wins for Justin!
Erxi Wu, the penhold blocking master had a breakout performance. He defeated two 1800's in close matches to make his highest rating! He held off a comeback by Albert Felan from SA defeating him 13-11 in the 4th, and had a 3 set comeback from 0-2 to defeat Tommy Omen 12-10 in the 5th. Very close matches!
Vidyut Govindarajan, you'll remember him by his persistence - especially when he wants to play a match or asks to challenge all the tables. This persistence definitely contributed to him having a great tournament! He took the win for a major upset against an opponent that was 180 points higher. Keep it up Vidyut, and keep challenging all the tables!!!
Sahaj Ramachandran had a great tournament, dropping only 1 set out of 25 on his charge to take the U1600 event. Sahaj is known for his great backhand and making tough placement shots. Keep it up Sahaj!!!
Swar Patel, a repeat mention in many of these tournament reports, also joins the 1900 club. He is now one of six juniors from the ATTC Junior Program that has achieved this milestone - the previous 5 being Neo Wang, Sarthak Gupta, Samuel Tao, Sambit Kanjilal, and Ananya Singaraju. Swar defeated DFW junior rival Dhruv Dusad to take a major "W" against the 2110 Dhruv.
The list below contains the following information: Name - Club Affiliation - New rating (point gain) Highest Rating (HR)
Samuel Tao -- ATTC Junior -- 2226(+300) HR
Justin Kim -- ATTC Junior -- 1166(+208) HR
Erxi Wu -- ATTC Adult -- 1848(+199) HR
Vidyut Govindarajan -- ATTC Junior -- 926(+104) HR
Sahaj Ramachandran -- ATTC Junior -- 1572(+85) HR
Swar Patel -- ATTC Junior -- 1915(+56) HR
Maalolan Parthasarathi -- ATTC Junior -- 984(+35)
Erwin Josef Prinz -- Pong Club ATX Adult -- 1414(+29)
Olaf Westheider -- Pong Club ATX Adult -- 1104(+21)
Kartikaya Pershad -- ATTC Junior -- 1292(+17) HR
Jeremey D Lopez -- ATTC Adult -- 1515(+14)
Pavlo Savchenko -- ATTC Adult -- 1558(+14) HR
Andre Beskrowni -- ATTC Adult -- 1312(+14) HR
Aditya Chirayath -- ATTC Junior -- 1702(+10)
A lot of us are competitive, we want to win and play how we want to play. Sometimes things are better than we expect, as we expect, or don't work out at all. It's important to step back and remember we play this sport because we enjoy it.
Remember to have fun.
Winning, playing your best, and improving are definitely great, but few things in life have a continuous upwards trend. Remember you're not alone and you're surrounded by friends, family, and club mates. Take the time to cheer or coach for club mates. Watch an intense match with friend and swoon over how a player pulled off the most ridiculous shot. Give someone a pat on the back when they play really well. Or during practice between drills, goof off a little. Life has a lot going on, best to add good memories and enjoy!