The first tournament of 2024 took place this past weekend, Feb 2-4, at Fremont Table Tennis Academy with players from throughout Northern California battling for bragging rights and trophies and medals! Players battled in rating events, junior events, Open Doubles, Open Singles, and a seniors event. The players to win multiple events were Tanishq Dhavali (Under 2200, Under 1900, Juniors 18 Years and Under), Frank (Dewei) Sun (Under 1600, Seniors 50+ Years), and Atharva Arvind (Under 700, Under 400). The next 3 tournaments will take place at a great nearby venue, the Siliman Center in Newark. There will be a singles tournament on Saturday, April 13, a team tournament on Memorial Day weekend (May 25-26), and then another singles tournament on Saturday, June 22.
UPCOMING TOURNAMENTS:
2024 APRIL OPEN (April 13): ENTRY FORM / ENTER ONLINE | 2024 NEWARK WEST COAST TEAMS (May 25-26): ENTRY FORM / ENTER ONLINE | 2024 NEWARK JUNE OPEN (June 22): ENTRY FORM / ENTER ONLINE
DAY 1: Friday, Feb 2, 2024
The first day of play featured the lower rating events for players still gaining experience in the sport. The Under 25 event kicked things off with Dhyuthi Praveen taking the title over Sahasrad Muthukumar. Then came the Under 400 with Atharva Arvind taking the title in the first of two nail-biting finals over Anchit Nayak with 4 of the 5 games ending in deuce. In the Under 100 event, lefty Abhinav Kakarala took the title over Mehul Ajmera. In the Under 50 event, Akhil Ramakrishnan took the title in his first tournament over Marcus Mu.
DAY 2: Saturday, Feb 3, 2024
The second day play began with Rohan Bubna and Umar Iqbal coming back from down match point to win the Open Doubles final over Frank Sun and Arkaprabho Ghosh. Frank would take the next two titles winning Seniors 50+ over Arsalan Afrakhteh and the Under 1600 over doubles partner and practice partner Arkaprabho Ghosh. Frank was a doubles point away from a hat trick of titles! The Under 1300 would be won by Saatwik Muthukumar in a close 3-2 final over Jack Lynch. The Under 1000 was won by Stanley Li who showed poise to advance from the group and semis in close matches before winning the final over Xujing Zhang. The Under 700 final was a repeat of the Under 400 final the previous day with Atharva Arvind winning another nailbiter 3-2 over Anchit Nayak.
DAY 3: Sunday, Feb 4, 2024
Open Singles kicked things off on the final day of play. The final was with Fremont tournament director Shashin Shodhan winning over Sacramento tournament director James Therriault. Special mention goes to 11-year old Karthik Kalle who upset the #3 seed in Open and extended finalist James to 5 games before losing. The rest of the day belonged to Tanishq Dhavali who would go undefeated in his 10 matches dropping only 3 total games to win the Under 2200 (over Rohan Bubna), Under 1900 (over Alex Rozhin), and Juniors 18 Years and Under titles (over Sayan Jafarali). The juniors 8 years and under event closed play which is always fun to watch. Neil Nambiar, in his final 8 years and under event before soon turning 9, reversed the previous 8 years and under final result and took the title over Vidhyut Vasan. Viraaj Gaikwad and Advik Krishna won 3rd place in this promising field.
