Anh Pham won the Knoxville Joseph Newgarden Memorial Summer Open 2019
The Knoxville Table Tennis Club (KTTC) hosted its annual USATT sanctioned tournament on August 3rd, 2019.
This is the second annual Joseph Newgarden Memorial Open in honor of Mr. Joseph Newgarden’s legacy. Mr. Joseph Newgarden is the founder of the Newgy Industries, a company pioneers in table tennis robot innovation. Newgy’s Robo-Pong® is the first table tennis robot of its kind when it first released back in 1988. Many world class professional players train with Robo-Pong® regularly to give them the competitive edge. Since the original release, Newgy Industries continues to innovate and to upgrade the robot technology. Their latest Robo-Pong® 3050-XL that is controlled via an app on your personal iOS or Android device is another example of the innovative minds that work at Newgy.
Mr. Joseph Newgarden himself, a table tennis enthusiast, has been one of the biggest promoters of the sport. His generous supports of many table tennis events are unmatched and many tournaments including the Knoxville tournaments will not be made possible without Mr. Newgarden’s and Newgy’s support. Sadly, Mr. Newgarden has pass away in November 2017. In commemorating Mr. Newgarden’s contribution to our sports, KTTC is honored to be able to host our annual tournament in his name.
The Knoxville tournament is a multi-staged Round Robin format. Preliminary round made up with 8 groups of 5. The top three finish will be placed into the Upper Division Round Robin and the lower two finish will be placed into the Lower Division Round Robin.
In addition to the normal tournament prize money, this tournament format is unique in that the winner of every upset match will receive Upset Gold Dollar based on the rating difference if both players are officially rated by USATT before the start of the tournament. We reserved $200 Gold Dollars before the tournament and with an additional generous donation from Jonathan Hurt of $45 to make our Gold Dollar total up to $245 this year. These are US One Dollar coins. This feature of the tournament is junior players’ favorite. This year, KTTC congratulates Louis Torres with an official rating of 1138 to claim the largest Gold Dollar haul. Louis has earned $72 Gold Dollars. He could have earned $75. But we run out of Gold Dollars!
In the Upper division, the first semi-final was played between Anh Pham (Estimated Rating: 2200) from Knoxville, TN and Lydia Tsang (Rated: 1922) from Nashville, TN. Anh who arrives in Knoxville about two months ago is a first time tournament player originally from Vietnam. He plays with a spiny and yet powerful two wing attack style to the game. Lydia plays with a strong short pips on her forehand and many spin variations. Although Lydia fought gallantly against Anh, Anh’s service variations and strong counter attacks proves to be too much for Lydia. Anh defeated Lydia 3:0 to move on the final match.
The second semi-final is a highly contested match between Martin Del Vecchio (Rated: 2125) from Knoxville, TN and Mina Boushra (Rated: 1949) from Nashville, TN. Mina plays a modern defender game with a killer forehand attack. Martin is a steady two-wing attacker who plays with his powerful forehand drive loops and spiny backhand game. The match saw a seesaw battle between a defender and an attacker. There are many great rallies and intelligent plays from both players. In the end, Martin has to fight back from 2:1 down to win the fifth game to move to the final.
This sets up a final match between the top two seeds according to proceeding. Anh and Martin have been playing against each other at our club the last two months. So both players are familiar with each other game. This comes down who makes the least mistakes. Since Martin had fought a contested semi-final, this gave Anh with a slight advantage having a fresher physical game to start the match. Anh made the fewer mistakes and took the first game with a 11:7 win. The second game opens with some strong shots from both players especially in the service receive game. In the end, Martin made a few mistakes that costs him the second game. In the third game, Martin opened the game with a changed in his service variations and proved to be effective with a 5:1 lead. Unfortunately, with a few misfire on the forehand from Martin, Anh was able to tie the game at 5:5, from that point, Anh starts playing more aggressively with his forehand and took the third game and won the final match.
Final Match Video:
In the Lower division, the first semi-final was played between two KTTC member Minh Pham (Rated: 1550) and John Yang (Rated: 1361). Minh jumped on John with a strong first game win with 11:2. John steadied the match and played with more consistent shots. But Minh consistency and spiny forehand loop prevails and took the second game with 11:8. The third game proved to be the critical game where John played extremely well. In the end, Minh made a few less mistakes and took game 3 with 12:10 and won the semi-final.
The second semi-final was played between Kamalaksha Das (Rated: 1468) from Atlanta, GA and Victor Marik Lee (Rated: 1532) from Gainesville, FL. Through out the match, the two players played with their strength and exploited other weakness. Kamalaksha played with a strong third ball attack game and proved to be deadly for Victor. Kamalaksha won the match with 11:6, 11:4, and 11:5.
In the final match between Kamalaksha and Minh, both players play the attack style game. Through out the match, both played with their strong forehand plays. Kamalaksha took the first game with 11:6, Minh fought back and took second game in deuce 16:14. The third and fourth games saw many rallies. In the end, Kamalaksha made the fewer mistakes and took both game and won the final match.
The Knoxville Table Tennis Club would like to thank all the players who had participated in the tournament. KTTC would also like to thank our sponsors Newgy, 21st Century Legacy, Horizon Aviation, YWCA, and Tactics Group and all the volunteers who have made the event a successful one.