2009 Oklahoma City Fall Tournament
09-26-09: Oklahoma City - Table Tennis - Larry Buell

Saturday dawned, a crisp and beautiful day. The trip from Tulsa to OKC for this tournament simply flew by! Chris Agimudie and I came representing our club, and we had an auspicious beginning by arriving at the same time (unplanned even). Chris was accompanied by his friend Ann, while my son met us and took my wife to Norman for the day.

The Team Tournament format was standard Davis Cup, with teams consisting of 2-4 members. In this Team Tournament the ratings for the top two team members could not exceed 3600. Any two can play in the two singles matches, any two can then play the doubles. Singles are continued after the doubles as needed until one team wins 3 matches.
 

Of interest is that there is no set rule concerning the playing of the singles after the doubles – they can be played in order, or in parallel. The thing to find out from the local tournament official is whether the parallel play is optional or mandatory. Because although the event form lists the singles in a certain order, the first singles after the doubles that gets a team to 3 wins will conclude play. Some of the teams did not know this and so experienced a little ‘gamesmanship’ while one of the parallel singles dragged out a match waiting to get the results of the other. It is purely optional once a tie has been decided while a singles match is still in progress if that pair wishes to finish their match (for ratings only).

 

12 teams took part in this event. So Larry Kesler (the tournament referee, who along with Britt Salter, Dale Goodman and David Hash organized another great tournament!) divided the first half of play into 4 RRs consisting of (I’ll pause here for new math pupils to compute) 3 teams each. In our first tie Chris and I, seeded 2nd in our RR behind overall 1st seeds Carl Miller (1818) and Guy Hendrickson (1727) played the 3rd seeded team of Doug Marks (1374) and Si-Dung Lam (1629).
 

Doug has been working with Winfred Addy, and the work has born fruit. Doug was killing with great accuracy anything slightly up, and was quick on his counters. In my match against him (lost 12-10 in the fifth) I simply could not overcome his power and consistency. I foresee a meteoric rise in this young man’s rating, helped in no small part by his victory over me (Chris estimated his hit/counter game at well over 1800 level).

Chris won his match versus Si (played simultaneously so could not watch), then on to the doubles. Chris and I played very smoothly together, with Chris getting big shots off both forehand and backhand (especially off a long serve) and me moving the ball around trying to get our opponents out of position. We won the doubles 3-0. Then Chris played a tough match against Doug, which he felt fortunate to win and we won our first tie 3-1.

 

We next faced the top-seeds Carl and Guy (again, played simultaneously). Carl has been tough for me to beat over the years, as his consistency, change of pace, mobility and slight of hand direction changes give me no consistent rhythm to get my game going against (I imagine this is his intention against all opponents – he reminds me of the playing strategy of John McEnroe, who also changed the pace on every shot so as to give his opponent no rhythm to fall into).
 

I did manage to take one game off Carl, which was a minor victory for me. Chris played Guy, whose rating has taken a what I’m sure will be a temporary tumble, very close, and was improving each game. Next time, Chris!
 

In the doubles we took them to 5, losing 11-9 in the 5th. I had two opportunities at 9-9 and 10-9 to put away forehand high kill shots, but by lifting my shoulder up too high hit long each time (sigh). Sorry Chris! But our good doubles play did give us a lift despite the loss.

 

In the 2nd half of play, Larry organized the teams into 3 RRs of 4 teams each. Our first tie was against a team using 3 players, Rod Cowles (1813), Jerry Gustafson (1693) and Gordon Dickey, Jr (1593, who has been getting coaching tips from none other than Sean O’Neill).
 

Rod played Chris first while I played Jerry. Rod had a style I hadn’t seen since the 70s – hardbat! He was a very effective chopper, with terrific court coverage and great variations of spin. Chris, who wasn’t even around in the 70s to see this, lost a tough match 0-3.
 

I played Jerry, who was a chopper/topper, but hadn’t played a tournament in 9 years. He had good touch/reactions, but was a bit rusty and I managed a win (3-0) by giving him easy low pushes then driving long to the corners, killing anything up. Jerry did play better each game.
 

We then went into the doubles, where Rod and Gordon paired up. They whupped us good. Rod told me he and Gordon (a lefty) play a lot of doubles together, and it showed, Gordon kept anything not up simply in play, while Rod moved the ball around with his hardbat chops quite well. Anything we left up from the chops, Gordan would kill to the opposite corner. Very effective duo! We lost 3-0.
 

In the 2nd half, Chris handled Jerry well with a 3-1 win, while I played a very cagey but ultimately unsuccessful match against Rod, losing 12-10 in the 3rd. Britt Salter was kind enough to tell me afterwards I had the right approach to Rod’s hardbat style (giving him nospin pushes/blocks until something came up which I then tried to flat kill), but my kill shots were nipping the net too frequently for me to overcome Rod’s consistency.

 

Our next tie was against Eddie (1800s spinny/anti combo) and Clayton (nonrated, tennis player picking up TT). I apologize that I did not record these fine players last names! Eddie, playing Chris first, used a great 1-2 punch of block/chop with anti and great drive putaways to beat Chris 3-0. Clayton, a tall, lanky player with great court coverage, had terrific drive/kills on anything up. When he learns to return services he will be a force to contend with (my severe underspin short/long serves gave him much trouble, enabling a 3-0 win for me).
 

In the doubles Chris and I again moved well together, giving each other encouragement as we managed a solid win. Then Chris played Clayton, where Chris’ great drives and smart ball placement got him the win, giving us the tie win as well.

 

Our last tie of the day was against Craig Milkowski (1663) and Dalton Daugherty (1608) with Britt Salter (1653) joining Craig in the doubles. We were both a bit under the weather at this point, Chris having pulled his right peck muscle and me just running short on fuel. Craig and Dalton played strongly and solidly, earning their victories. I lost to Dalton 11-9 in the 5th, his consistency with both pushing and driving and his good service returns ending up too much for me. In the doubles against Britt and Craig, Chris and I gave it everything we had, losing an excruciatingly close match 12-10 in the 5th.

 

I thought Chris played extremely well, and with more experience at shot selection will soar into the 1800s at minimum in the next year. I am (once again) in a transition period, changing my game from playing back from the table for counter drives to standing up close for positional picks, blocks, short topspin drives and kills. My timing still needs adjustment for playing this close, but I played solidly against the 1800 players and feel confident this is the direction I should pursue. My weaknesses continue to be the ‘easy’ stuff, which I consistently overhit, but in the next few months I will focus on this and hopefully see another plateau of play reached by mid next year.

 

A big thank you to Ann for her cheerful support and encouragement of us both throughout our play!

 

A bright finish to the day – Chris and I were done in time for him to get back on the road to the TU football game (without missing much I hope!). I traveled down to Norman for a great visit with my son, dinner, and then some sweet dancing down memory lane with Rock Band: Beatles tunes (I was the Walrus) before the drive home.

 

Thanks again to the folks in OKC for staging another great tournament!  End