It's official, this new generation of ATTC Cadets has its first over 2000 player: Swar Patel! He defeated several incredible opponents like Kelly Zhao, Jeff Nguyen, and Dat Nguyen on his way to get here. A lot of opponents (including myself) had a hard time with Swar's service and consistent attack. What I think is great about the ATTC community is that the rest of the juniors really celebrated Swar's new rating, with several kids effusing that "Swar is a genius!"
But I don't think that's the reason for his success here. Swar has been diligently practicing what he's learned from group classes while also just attending the ATTC spring break camp to reach his peak conditioning. I believe all of the juniors can potentially hit 2000 if they put in the work. And that shows in the list of juniors that gained points this tournament:
Name | Begin Rating | End Rating | +/- |
Arnav Rao | 1120 | 1368 (PR) | 248 |
Maalolan Parthasarathi | 1016 | 1262 (PR) | 246 |
Swar Patel | 1872 | 2058 (PR) | 186 |
Vidyut Govindarajan | 1290 | 1462 (PR) | 172 |
Lekha Subbaiah | 1194 | 1300 (PR) | 106 |
JJ Zhao | 847 | 937 (PR) | 90 |
Shandra Qiu | 1703 | 1749 (PR) | 46 |
Aaryan Polisetty | 1616 | 1643 (PR) | 27 |
Sahaj Ramachandran | 1673 | 1699 | 26 |
Disha Shubhashree Murali | 1122 | 1143 (PR) | 21 |
Ananya Singaraju | 1726 | 1741 | 15 |
Aditya Chirayath | 1860 | 1873 (PR) | 13 |
Mohit Ganji | 1449 | 1454 | 5 |
Neave Joy | 1785 | 1788 | 3 |
Look at all of those Personal Records! ATTC Juniors are gaining points everywhere. To call out some individual wins, Shandra had a great 5 set win against Theo Stephens with the aid of Coach Jeff. Aaryan and Vidyut both had a great win over a 1700-level player. While Arnav and Maalolan made huge jumps over some 1300+ opponents. Arnav not only was the highest point gainer, but also won the U1300 event!
That said, while we celebrate these wins, we always should remember that circumstances can change next time. ATTC has the home club advantage against out of town players and the kids were fresh out of their Spring Break boot camp. Everyone has to keep training hard to keep their ratings and go even higher.
Moving on to the adult side:
Name | Begin Rating | End Rating | +/- |
Sikander Aggarwal | 1626 | 1788 (PR) | 162 |
Jeremey D Lopez | 1481 | 1583 | 102 |
Teddy Bricker | 1687 | 1735 | 48 |
Olaf Westheider | 1168 | 1208 (PR) | 40 |
Amber Raza | 1508 | 1539 | 31 |
Brian Doherty | 1330 | 1349 | 19 |
Nicholas Mickowski | 1554 | 1569 (PR) | 15 |
Shreyas Sule | 2108 | 2117 | 9 |
Brandon Babot | 1440 | 1448 | 8 |
Erwin Josef Prinz | 1412 | 1418 | 6 |
Zhen Chen | 1707 | 1708 (PR) | 1 |
Luke Kempen | 1792 | 1793 (PR) | 1 |
Biggest story here is Sikander changing from his pre-made paddle to a custom Luke Kempen ALC blade and almost instantly hitting his PR. He defeated several ATTC juniors and veterans to jump up 162 points, a fantastic tournament from Sikander. Also of note is Teddy beating a top junior from DFW rated over 2000. Everyone at ATTC knows Teddy's high ceiling is worth sharing on Zillow, and he showed it that match.
While 2000 is a huge deal, we all know it's just the beginning of being a good table tennis player. There's still so much room for growth for everyone at ATTC. We may never get to the level of the players in the finals, but it's a goal worth setting for ourselves.