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2024 AUSTIN NEW YEAR Tournament Report





As the Div A winner, Jimmy Butler, left with his cool $600 dollar prize, he commented to the staff of ATTC that "you all run the best tournament series that I know, everything is always consistent and on-time."


I think we take that for granted, the fact that we have a tournament with 68 players that always starts prelim pools at 9am sharp, 2nd pool always starts 1:30pm sharp, and everyone is out of the building at 7pm. Our tournaments start on time because of our fantastic volunteers Cynthia and Ken who are in charge of sign-ins and entry access. Pools finish in time for lunch because of the ATTC staff members like Darren and Hazel directing players to finish their groups in open tables. And coordinating all of this meticulous scheduling is our tournament director and forever young Tuan Tran, who just celebrated his (undisclosed) birthday yesterday.



Without his tireless puppeteering of the tournament operations, we could not bring these tournaments to the wider table tennis community in Texas. Tuan gives up his playing time as an elite player to give back to the community and that deserves praise every tournament. Now on to the winners:


Divisions

First

Second

Third

Fourth

A

Jimmy Butler

Chia Hao Chang

Andy Wang

Thang Vu

B

Swar Patel

Neave Joy

Luke Lin

Yizhou Zhao

C

Sahaj Ramachandran

Ethan Jiao

Van Savell

Aarudhran Aswin Kumar

D

Richard Stanley

Weihsuan Wong

Tairan Deng

Nicholas Mott

E

Brandon Babot

Olaf Westheider

Qingyu Zhou

Lekha Subbaiah


ATTC took home all three trophies in Division B, 1st place in Division C, two trophies in Division D, and 1st place in Division E. We're defending our home turf well! Here's the faces of the winners:


TOP GAINERS

NAME

Initial Rating

New Rating

Points Gained

Tairan Deng

1118

1394

276

Zhen Chen

1445

1697

252

Weihsuan Wong

1365

1497

132

Jenny Pobelova

1655

1758

103

Anthony Juarbe

1368

1409

41

Aditya Chirayath

1810

1848

38

Lillian Ding

1232

1268

36

Brian Doherty

1306

1330

24

Nicholas Mickowski

1525

1548

23

Teddy Bricker

1667

1678

11

Neave Joy

1743

1754

11

Mohit Ganji

1305

1314

9

Qing Chai

1939

1944

5

This was a killer tournament for the Austin adult players in the community with the top 5 here all being adults. I've seen everyone on this list at the club tirelessly grinding on their game while juggling their professional, educational and personal obligations and that that hard work really paid off this tournament.


Some notable personal best ratings include: Tairan Deng at 1394, Zhen Chen at 1697, Weihsuan Wong at 1497, Jenny Pobelova at 1758, Anthony Juarbe at 1409, Lillian Ding at 1268, and Nicholas Mickowski at 1548. I think the average level of adult regulars at ATTC has skyrocketed recently and it's a trend that is unlikely to reverse course.


That said, we all know the coming tide of ATTC Juniors will crash into us, with Aditya Chirayath and Mohit Ganji also both hitting their PBs in this tournament.

 

This is my first tournament write-up and one of my best tournaments. Coincidence? Probably not! I believe that our ratings are a lagging indicator of our own personal growth. So much of the time, our ratings fluctuate up and down as despite our perceived efforts. Table tennis is such a frustrating game (I'm sure we've all had this thought before). But because the ATTC community is so supportive in creating training opportunities, it incentives everyone to not only get better individually, but also help each other out in improving together. Ratings don't always reflect that, but I believe that if we trust the process and let steel sharpen steel, there's no way we won't hit our goals in time.


See everyone in the next tournament!

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