To qualify for the National Championships students had to compete at their local college level, then they had to finish tops in one of 16 regional competitions. These regional winners were invited to compete for the national titles. 90 athletes qualified for the finals. It was the first time that many of them had been invited to compete at this high a level. Houston at Easter time is a glorius place to be. Two or three of the students treated the tournament as a vacation and made only a token appearance, the vast majority gave it their all to win a title.
There were 19 titles contested at this years games. These included Championship, Master, Expert, Elite and Novice divisions in men's singles and doubles and women's singles and doubles and also the National Mixed Doubles Team title. The team of Lonergan and Richard Lee won the Men's Doubles. Women's Doubles was claimed by the team of Elkin and Kavitha Ganapathy. Brian Pace and his partner Alla Greene took home the Mixed Doubles team championship.
Irina Elkin of Purdue University was the Women's Singles winner while Sean Lonergan of the University of Maryland, won all ten of his matches in the two day tournament, losing only two games. He wins the title of 1998 Men's National Collegiate Singles Champion. Along with their titles, both championship winners received a Newgy Table Tennis Robot. Sean was 12-3, 16-4, 20-13 down in the deciding game and won an amazing 9 points in a row to capture the title. His, however, was not the most incredible story of these championships.
David Roberts of Washington State had the 'Tournament of Dreams'.
With a USATT rating only in the 2000's, David defeated players over 2100 in the preliminary round robin to come out first in his group and make the Men's Singles Championship round.
In the championship round, he found himself the lowest rated player out of the 10 to advance into this group.
In his half were 2183 Yamil Rivera, 2265 Kevin Au, 2351 Ashoo Jain, and 2532 Sean Lonergan. On the other side were 2220 Mark Dubin, 2250 Karthikeyan Viswanathan, 2305 Richard Lee, 2400 Kazuyuki Yokoyama, and 2435 Brian Pace.
As the #5 player on his side, he played #2 Ashoo Jain first. After dropping the first game at 17, he captured the next two at 19 and 16 to stun the amazed Jain. Jain would later take a game off of Lonergan, so he was playing quite well. David then faced the #1 seeded Lonergan and scored a respectable 16 and 15. Next up was Kevin Au, he beat him in a difficult 3 game match at 22, -14, 15. Following that he played the match of the tournament against Rivera. Rivera is an excellent lobber.
This match should have been played in front of a crowd of thousands instead of only about a hundred. People would have been talking about it for years! David attacked almost every point and Yamil kept bringing them back. Each rally became more impressive. Many times during the match, Rivera would toss the barriers aside in order to get to David's shots. This court was 40 feet long!
The match might have been called as an expedite match if there had been an umpire assigned, but this would have been a shame. The rallies on each point were remarkable. The ceilings in the Houston Room at U of H are almost 60 feet high. Yamil's lobs were often close to hitting this ceiling. In three tension filled games, David prevailed -20, 11, 12 and nearly stumbled from exhaustion at the end.
While he had already advanced to the final round by virtue of his other wins, he was unaware of this and played his heart out to make the finals cross-over. "I'm glad nobody told me", he smiled after the win. Next came the cross over.
Though exhausted he was determined to showcase his abilities. The final four were 2532 Lonergan, 2432 Brian Pace (FL) and 2400 Kazuyuki Yokoyama (NY). David wanted to play Pace first and he got his wish. He came out without fear and again served and attacked at every opportunity. He won the first game at 18! However, you could see the effects of all his matches begin to take their toll.
Brian is a very strong player both mentally and physically. He fought hard and played some of his very best. Though David tried he was unable to get that second game to win the match, but pushed Brian all the way scoring 14, and 15 in the next two after leading in both. (Later, the effects of this effort would also show on Brian as he was unable to close it out against Sean after leading 20-13 in the Final's final game.)
David then had to face the very impressive defensive chopper, Yokoyama. After the several hours of grueling mental and physical play, David was unable to summon enough to go through the man's stout defense. Kazuyuki prevailed in two good games, 15 and 16 to take third place overall.
So, amazingly, a player with a rating in the 2000's places 4th at the National Collegiate Championships. At the awards banquet that evening, David found out he had been voted by the other players as ACUI's Most Outstanding Sportsman!
Man, what a tournament! Congratulations David Roberts.
Many thanks to all those that helped from the HTTC. Special thanks go to Jeff Davis, ACUI Coordinator and Bill Schwrer UH ACUI Liason. Our appreciation also goes to Torsten Pawlowski, Tournament Director. It was a special thrill to hear former UH and ACUI Coordinator Dick Gage on the podium.
