Fremont Table Tennis Academy advanced students went to the U.S. Open this past week at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. It was the first U.S. Open for nearly all the students who had a great experience playing with different styles and players from throughout the U.S. Players showed great team spirit and supported each other when their matches did not take place. The US Open had a record of 1500 players.
Our players were usually the bottom seed out of four in their round robin groups in nearly all the events and pulled off many upsets to advance in many events. There was a nice accomplishment in the under 1300 event as 5 of the 6 Fremont Table Tennis Academy students advanced, often as the bottom seed of 4. Aditya Shyam, playing his first U.S. open and second overall major tournament, had a great accomplishment winning his first 13 matches in his 4 main events (U-1200, U-1300, U-1400, and U-1500) before his runs ended. Our players also ran into the eventual champion in 6 events in the quarters or round of 16 so faced the toughest draws in the single elimination bracket after advancing so had bad luck with the draws.
I heard from different sources with direct knowledge that players were losing their rating intentionally before the rating cutoff and suspected myself this was happening. Players in tournaments before the cutoff lost intentionally to lower their ratings or avoided playing tournaments while training a lot to try to win the medals here to play easier rating categories. I heard it was commonplace in all Bay Area clubs except mine where players intentionally lost matches to lower their rating to try to win the rating event medals here. I think it’s a serious lack of ethics and sportsmanship by these players and clubs. My student lost in the single elimination bracket to the eventual champion in under 1200 and under 1300 in the final 16 and he was already over 1300 after the U.S. Nationals in July. I heard kids at his academy train a lot and his rating then dropped to below 1200 likely just to win the easier medals here. In his home tournament before the final ratings came out for US Open, he just played the under 2650 event. Not sure why a 1100-rated player would play a 2650 event (when he normally always plays events right above his rating) except there’s no chance to pull an upset and improve his rating. Another player from this club who my student lost to in quarters of Under 1300 went from 1400+ after the U.S. Nationals in Alabama to below 1300 and avoided playing his home tournament right before the rating cutoff. I heard from different people that many Bay Area clubs were doing this to try to win the rating event medals. In my mind, those medals mean nothing and robbed my students and others who trained hard and played fairly of a fair playing field.
There was another adult lady who played the Youth Olympics for India and somehow entered with a rating of 660 (suspicious to start with) when she was likely 2000. She won 4 gold medals for events she would normally be ineligible for. This was unfair to the adults who had to play her as she robbed them of a fair chance to win medals in adults events. My top doubles students for 3100 doubles, Raghav and Anchit, lost to her in that event when her team won basically every match easily to win gold when they should have only been eligible for the next higher event, the under 4000 doubles. Four more meaningless gold medals in my opinion. I had one student who was rated 505 from a few years back before then moving to India where he was training a lot and becoming one of the top Indian kids for his age. His family had ethics and just entered him in events such as Under 1800 or higher as he would have been too good for the lower events.
Overall, despite the unlevel playing field, students gelled and had a great time with each other practicing and warming each other up, competing and pulling off upsets in their matches, and had a great experience on and off the table. Most students should see their ratings go up considerably after this US Open. We look forward to the US Nationals in Ontario, California this coming summer.