The 2023 West Coast Teams tournament featured 15 teams battling in 3 divisions over the Thanksgiving weekend, November 24-26! The finalists in Division 1 were Team O’Boll (Rohan Bubna, Umar Iqbal) over Team Underdogs (Yuchen Wang, Mingxiang Fan). Division 2 featured Team Spin Sprinters (Rayan Chatterjee, Pradeep Srinivasan) over Team Goats (Vihan Bagal, Kyle Liang) in the final. Division 3 featured the Dragons (Myo Thein, Ria Chatterjee) over Twin Trouble (Jai Jadhav, Om Jadhav) in the final.
The first two days of play featured Divisions 2 and 3 with qualifiers as the first round to determine what division they would play in the rest of the tournaments. Special mention goes to Rohan Bubna in Division 1 and Vihan Bagal in Division 2 who went the entire tournament undefeated in singles. The next tournaments hosted by Fremont TTA will take place in 2024.
DIVISION 1:
Team O’Boll, a play on words and nod to the legendary player Timo Boll, featuring Rohan Bubna and Umar Iqbal, took the title. Rohan Bubna went undefeated in both singles and doubles from group play through the finals. He lost only 5 games in his 12 matches en route to the title. His teammate Umar Iqbal lost to only Yuchen Wang (twice) of Underdogs and Mihika Vangapalli of Fremont TTA Mini-Cadets. Yuchen Wang and Mingxiang Fan of Team Underdogs finished in second place. Yuchen Wang only lost to Rohan Bubna (twice) and lost only 1 game in his remaining 9 victories. Third place went to Team Defenders (Tega Sebeni, Neeraj Garg) and Fremont TTA Mini-Cadets (Mihika Vangapalli, Raghav Bikkina).
DIVISION 2:
In Division 2, Team Spin Sprinters (Rayan Chatterjee, Pradeep Srinivasan) took the title over Team Goats (Vihan Bagal, Kyle Liang). The Goats had defeated Spin Sprinters in group play 3-2 but Spin Sprinters reversed the result in the final winning 3-1 with Pradeep and Rayan both winning one singles and doubles. Special mention goes to Vihan Bagal of Goats who went undefeated in singles play winning all 10 of his singles matches. Third place went to San Ramon Power (Ali Afrakhteh, Darren So) and Blazers (Smayan Srikanth, Abhinav Kakarala). 9-year old Ali of San Ramon Power went 10-2 in singles play losing only 2-3 to undefeated Vihan Bagal and to Rayan Chatterjee (who he later beat in the semis).
DIVISION 3:
Division 3 featured our future with the Dragons taking the title over Twin Trouble. Adult player Myo Thein of the Dragons, lost only one match en route to the title. His partner, 9-year old Ria Chatterjee and younger brother of Division 2 Champion Rayan Chatterjee, contributed to the team success, to make both siblings Division champions! They defeated 9-year old twins, Jai and Om Jadhav, as Team Twin Trouble, to take the title. This means 3 of the 4 finalists in Division 3 were 9-year olds! Third place in Division 3 went to Team Legends (14-year old Nikhil Kirsur and 8-year old Vidhyut Vasan) and Team Super Sonic (10-year old Vikram Pothana and 11-year old Mathew Roshan).