The 2013 SMART Bi-Annual Junior Ranking Tournament took place this past Saturday at the BES Auditorium, “the home of table tennis.”
With some 72 participants ranging from ages 7 to 18, and from high schools and several primary schools, the first SMART Junior Ranking “kicked off” at around 1:00 on Saturday afternoon with three categories being contested – 18Under, 15Under & 12Under.
The tournament started with a Round Robin group phase, from which the top two from each group would advance to a Final Double Elimination competition.
The 18Under Category started off with 19 players divided into 4 Round Robin groups, from which the 8 top finishers advanced to the Double Elimination Championship Finals.
Top seed Harim Ochaeta and Fabio Carballo, along with Daniel Sanchez, Gian Lisbey, Joshua Gegg, Aaron Stock, Ashar Arthurs and Matthew Usher all advanced to the Finals.
Fabio Carballo made it to the Finals by defeating Usher and Stock. Harim Ochaeta, on the other hand, had a more difficult time after losing his first match to Sanchez, taking him into the “losers bracket” in the Double Elimination event. Ochaeta, however, made his way back by defeating Lisbey, Stock, Usher, and then redeeming himself against Sanchez, whom he had lost to earlier.
With Carballo not having lost any match up to then, Ochaeta had to defeat him twice to take the 18Under Championship position.
In the end, the results were as follows:
18Under Category: 1st – Harim Ochaeta; 2nd – Fabio Carballo; 3rd – Daniel Sanchez; 4th – Matthew Usher.
In the 15Under Category, a bigger field started, with some 33 players starting off in 8 Round Robin groups. Once again, the top 2 from each group, resulting in 16 players, advanced to the Final Double Elimination round.
Fabio Carballo once again was the top seed in this category, along with Matthew Usher. Several newcomers were in the category, who demonstrated very good talent and competitive skills to give these top seed good competition.
Advancing along with Carballo and Usher were Devon Tillett, Trevon Brown, Harsh Katwani, Daniel Echeverria, Orville Leal, Daryl Palacio, Joshua Gegg, Ashar Arthurs, Nelson Zayden, Zack Ortiz, Denzel Young, Edwin Quan and Tyriek Rodriguez.
Carballo again made it to the semifinals by defeating Tillett, Kathwani and Gegg, then losing to Usher, putting him into the losers bracket, where he had to defeat top seed Joshua Gegg once again, to face off with Usher in the Finals.
Usher, on the other hand, made it through to the Finals by defeating Rodriguez, Quan, Arthurs and Carballo.
This time, Carballo had to defeat Usher twice to take the 15Under Championship position.
The results were as follows:
15Under Category: 1st – Fabio Carballo; 2nd – Matthew Usher; 3rd – Joshua Gegg; 4th – Ashar Arthurs.
The 12Under Category began with 20 players in a 4-group Round Robin, with the top 8 advancing to the Final Double Elimination.
With many newcomers in this junior category, the winner positions were completely open to any of the 8 finalists. In the end, Bjorne Gabourel proved to be the best player by advancing to the Finals after defeating Samron Pott, Alexis Tun and Tristan Flowers.
Alexis Tun, on the other hand, made his way to the Finals by defeating Latrel Solis, then losing to Gabourel, and then taking out Amiri Hoare and Tristan Flowers, to once again face off with Gabourel.
In the end, Gabourel proved to be the better player once again by defeating Tun, 3-0, and taking the 12Under Championship spot.
All finalists in this category are from St. Joseph Primary School.
Final results were as follows:
12Under Category: 1st – Bjourne Gabourel; 2nd – Alexis Tun; 3rd – Tristan Flowers; 4th – Amiri Hoare.
After some 190 games played over 7 hours, the event came to an end. On hand to present the trophies was Ian Courtenay, PR Manager for SMART, sponsors of this event.
President of the BTTA, Tux Vasquez thanked the sponsors, participants, parents, teachers, organizers, umpires and referees in making this event a great success.
Congratulations to all the winners, and Thank You to SMART, sponsors of this event.