Held this past Saturday on 2/10, the San Antonio Winter Giant Round Robin was full of upsets and humidity as a thunderstorm rolled throughout Texas. This was the sweatiest tournament I've been to, both physically and mentally. With the top seeded players over 2000 being automatically advanced to the second round, this left the first round with players around the same skill levels. And the lower seeded players came out with a vengeance, especially those from Austin. Let's look at the points haul from ATTC and the wins they got!
Name | Begin Rating | End Rating | +/- |
Vidyut Govindarajan | 931 | 1290 | 359 |
Mohit Ganji | 1314 | 1596 | 282 |
Anthony Juarbe | 1409 | 1569 | 160 |
Hazel Mott | 1530 | 1572 | 42 |
Pavlo Savchenko | 1629 | 1649 | 20 |
Teddy Bricker | 1678 | 1697 | 19 |
Brandon Babot | 1371 | 1384 | 13 |
Zhen Chen | 1697 | 1706 | 9 |
This is not a typo, Vidyut, the fearless kid challenger of all tables, gained 359 points! Vidyut is a long time junior at ATTC but his game has skyrocketed recently and it showed in this tournament, defeating a 1428 and 1333 in two upsets to get re-rated to almost 1300! We look forward to seeing Vidyut climb even higher this year!
Another Austin junior, Mohit gained a whopping 282 points to hit 1596, beating two 1500s and one 1600 to get there. He also took a 1800 to 5 sets! Coach Shahin said that Mohit's focus in official matches is very good. At this rate, he may challenge the top Austin juniors, and y'all better train even harder!
But the adults at ATTC also raked in the points. With Anthony hitting his personal best at 1569, beating his group's A seed (1702) to do so. I've seen Anthony developed his game diligently with Coach Bato and his forehand is now deadly. Hazel, Teddy and Brandon are all getting closer to their previous peak ratings and defeated opponents higher rated than them.
But rating points aren't necessarily reflection of skill or performance at a tournament. Getting the trophy at the end matters a lot too. And ATTC represented in the medal department, with Jeremey, Pavlo, Brandon, and Leo making it to the finals of their division. Here's the winners of the tournament:
Event | First Place | Second Place |
Shoko Kusuhara | Cyril Mayeux | |
Albert Felan | Pavlo Savchenko | |
Anh-Trung Dinh | Akshay Badiyannavar | |
Jeremey Lopez | Brandon Babot | |
Richard Nguyen | Leonid Odinokov | |
Albert Felan / Caleb Dye | Ryan Martin / Christopher Muntz |
To end this report, let's focus on one aspect of table tennis we all neglect: the serve. The winner of Division A, Shoko Kusuhara, has a beautiful fluid high toss serve that is often an outright winner. We should learn from her example and get much better serves. It can be tedious, but the results from it are so obvious. I'll see you on the tables.