AJ Carney won the Knoxville Cedar Bluff Racquet Club Gold Dollar Upset Open 2016
The Knoxville Table Tennis Club (KTTC) hosted its 2nd tournament in 2016 at the Knoxville Cedar Bluff Racquet Club on September 10th. The tournament uses a format with two round robin stages and a single elimination final round to determine the winners. 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. These are US One Dollar coins. This feature of the tournament is junior players’ favorite. KTTC has reserved additional $260 for upset “Gold Dollar”.
Players from around the region are competing fiercely for a prize money pool of $1410 spread among all four divisions.
In the Championship division, the first semi-final is played between AJ Carney from the Triangle Table Tennis in Morrisville, NC and HaoDong Jian from EC Sports Table Tennis club in Atlanta. With many speedy rallies and lighting shots, AJ prevails to move on to the final. On the other side of the semi-final, it was between John Mar from Atlanta International Table Tennis Academy and Yu-Sung Chen from EC Sports Table Tennis Club. The match was a five-game thriller and John had to come from a 2-1 deficit to defeat Yu-Sung in the fifth game to make it to the final.
2nd place John Mar and 1st place AJ Carney
In the final match, AJ took the first game with his spiny serves and precision blocking. John took the second game with his accurate offensive shots. In the third and fourth game, AJ continued with his good mix of good services, spiny loops, and solid defense to take the last two games and to claim the Championship division winner.
In the Class A division, KTTC’s own Hongchu Chen, who is one of the hardest trained players at our club defeated Octavio Pinell from the Asheville TT club 3 – 1 to claim the division title.
1st place Hongchu Chen and 2nd place Octavio Pinell
In the Class B division, Roger Jeanice from Southern Indiana TTA near Louisville, KY claimed the division title with a 3 – 0 victory over Shawfe Sung from Atlanta EC Sports.
2nd place Shawfe Sung and 1st place Roger Jeanice
In the Class C division, junior player Kelly Wu from EC Sports defeated Sean Byrne from Chattanooga TTC (1st time tournament player) 3 – 1 to claim the title.
1st place Kelly Wu and 2nd place Sean Byrne
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 Cedar Bluff Racquet Club, Newgy, Lane’s Music, G.R.E.A.T., Horizon Aviation and Tactics Group and all the volunteers who have made the event a successful one.
Players can click here to view the pictures during the tournament.
Jude Lam, President of KTTC