Texas Table Tennis hosted a tournament last Saturday to close out the festivities for the Lunar New Year. They had a dragon dance ensemble with four dragons to bring good luck to the venue. The format for this tournament was a little different since their facilities are a little smaller. There were 16 preliminary groups - 4 players per group - with 8 groups playing at 9AM and the second group of 8 playing at 10:45AM. The afternoon session consisted of a single elimination bracket starting at the round of 16 for Divisions B, C, and D. For the A bracket the 8 top seeded players had a bye. Folks that finished A in their prelim group then entered a single elimination bracket amongst themselves with winners to continue to the next round of single elimination against a top 8 seed. As a top 8 seed - it's possible to only play one match, where if you lose your first match - which is what happened, you only get to play one match. Which is funny and terrible at the same time. Life is ironic and doesn't care sometimes - which isn't bad, that's just how it is sometimes.
At a glance:
6 players from ATTC participated
Austin Clemens of TXWU Ft. Worth faced Houston's Li Kewei in the finals
Dylan Nguyen, the club proprietor did a great job of incorporating feedback from his previous tournaments to increase court space for tournament patrons. He also fed all tournament participants some great food free of charge!
------------------------------------------------------------------- Individual Achievements and Medals -------------------------------------------------------------------
Division B 3rd/4th - Jenny Pobelova
--------------------------------- Major Rating Hauls --------------------------------- No major hauls for this tournament unfortunately. Not going to lie - this was a tough tournament. But it was a lot of fun for the ATTC crew to coach and cheer for our club mates as they plowed through Division B, with a lot of nail biting matches going down to the 5th. Goes to show that it's tough to always be on an upwards trend - just because things went south for you doesn't me it will be that way forever - because you've been improving doesn't mean you're guaranteed to do so continuously. What's important is perseverance, camaraderie, and to keep competing! When things get tough instead of getting sour, maybe consider refocusing your energy in supporting your club mates and enjoying their matches - it's a lot more fun that way. You can count on the bulk of us returning to TTT in the future to take back some wins!!!