June 9, 2009
2nd Annual Westinghouse Table Tennis Championship Result
Pictured from left to right, Ed Mercier, Duke Du, Yun Long, and Dalibor Stojcic
Courtesy of Ed Mercier
The Second Annual Westinghouse Table Tennis Championships were held in the Energy Center Cafeteria in Monroeville, PA on Friday, May 29th. Twenty-One players competed on six tables in both a Singles and Doubles event. There were no entries for the Women’s division so that event was cancelled.
The Singles competition consisted of six round-robin brackets, in which two players advanced from each to the single elimination playoffs. Most of the players in the tournament were regular participants in the Westinghouse Table Tennis club, and thus it was possible to seed players according to ability. Each year there are a few surprises and this year one of the clubs top players, Lot Serebour, was ‘upset?’ in bracket play by a non-club player, Fernando Chan. Fernando was stopped in the first round of single elimination by Guoqiang Wang.
Another unknown player was Dalibor Stojcic, who is not a regular player in the Westinghouse Table Tennis Club but is a regular player in the South Park Table Tennis Club. With a USATT rating of over 1900 he was the number one seed in the Singles tournament. Due to a knee injury a year ago, Dali has not played table tennis recently and for that reason the Singles tournament was still very much up for grabs.
The final four in the Singles event were the top four seeds in the tournament, Dali, Duke Du, Qin Zhou, and Ed Mercier. Ed and Dali played in one semi-finals, and following an exhausting match that went to 21-19 in the fourth game, Ed pulled off the upset 3-1 to advance to the finals. In the other semis, Duke cruised to a 3-0 victory over Qin. The final matchup of Ed and Duke was the same as last year, but this year the outcome was different as Duke ended up on top by the score of 3-2 to take the Singles title.
Between the Singles and Doubles competition, pizza and cake was shared. The cake was in recognition of Qin Zhou, a visitor from SNERDI who would be returning to China on June 1st. Qin has been the most regular player in the Table Tennis Club over the past year and also the most dominating. His excellent attitude and strong skills made him one player that everyone enjoyed playing each week and he will be missed by the entire club. We wish him the best on his career and we are happy for him that he will be back with his family again.
The Doubles competition consisted of eight teams competing in two round robin brackets. The teams were selected in such a way that two very strong players would not be on a single team. However when the team of Dali and Yun Long was announced, some slight grumbling started as it was perceived that this team was the favorite. Confirming those predictions, the finals saw Dali and Yun facing Qin and Wenchao Zhang, with Dali and Yun ending up on top by the score of 3-0.
Overall the tournament was a lot of fun and some excellent table tennis was enjoyed by all. The table tennis club is averaging over eight players per week, and we encourage all Westinghouse Employees and Contractors who may want to start practicing for next year to come join us each Wednesday at 5 PM in the East Auditorium of the Energy Center.
Special thanks to Butterfly and Mitch Seidenfeld for all their helping getting this club started.
Second Annual Westinghouse Table Tennis Championships
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