Saturday was a great day for Table Tennis!
We had 36 players from all parts of the KC Metro area join us in Independence for our Annual Spring Tournament. Of the 36, 10 were "first timers" at our tournament. As a matter of fact, there were several who had never played in a tournament before. Pretty exciting stuff.
All the players started in a Giant Round Robin with the top two finishers from each table moving to the Championship Single Elimination Bracket and the remaining players going to the Consolation Bracket.
A few photos of the event are below. You can enlarge any photo by clicking on it. You can also download the photo if you wish be right clicking and doing a "Save As" to one of your folders. To return to the blog, click on the "back arrow" in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
The auditorium of the Truman Memorial Building is the site of our tournament.
Here is a photo of the players we could round up just before play began.
Play in progress.
Everyone has their own way of staying relaxed while competing.
A couple of "first timers" at this tournament.
The first Semi-final match in the Championship Bracket was between Ilya Rozenblat and Dinu Varghese.
The second Semi-final match between Lin Rahardja and Rob Sharp.
The Championship Final between Lin and Dinu. 
Louie Loyd (on right), our Club President, awards the winners of the Consolation Bracket. First place goes to Wei Wang, second to Ram Koya, and third to Amirali (Roger) Farishta.
The winners in the Championship Bracket were Dinu Varghese in first place, Lin Rahardja in second, and Ilya Rozenblat in third.
Following the Singles competition, the Doubles gets underway. We had 12 teams competing......that is a record number.
The Championship Doubles final.
The 3rd place finishers, Mark Fay and Mei Wang.
Second place went to Jeff Johnston and Terry Brecheisen.
And the 1st place winners were Lin Rahardja and Ilya Rozenblat.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all the players who helped make the tournament a success. I believe that everyone had lots of fun playing people that they would not ordinarily have a chance to compete against.I also think that many of the players took advantage of the opportunity to learn how to improve their games. I saw one of our players who recently switched to a hard bat getting advice from Jeff Johnston. Jeff is the current U. S. Champion in the Over 40 Hard Bat so he certainly qualifies as an expert. That is just one example of the good stuff that happens at this tournament beyond just competing.
The good news is that we will do this again in the Fall...........October 23rd to be exact. If you are a long term planner, mark your calendar. Thanks again to all the players.....we hope to see you again in October if not before then.
John Browning
