Ah, San Diego.  What a great place for a tournament:  very nice gym, a lot of parking, good weather, nice folks.  What's there not to like about San Diego.  I have a love hate relationship with the Balboa Park Activity Center.  As a player, the Balboa Park Activity Center is the best there is.  As a photographer, the indoor lighting is inadequate..  Plus the presence of natural skews the digital sensor when using automatic white balance.  I had to keep adjusting the white balance all day to get the proper skin color. It's like going to your mother in law.  You like it because food is great.  You hate it because you feel better without her presence.

Don Alto started his big weekend cookout out by taking the U2500 event over older brother Earl.  In the SF, Earl romped over Ben Johnson and brother Don took care of business with Trevor.  One notable match was the 3-2 11-9 in the 5th win Dr. Tuan Le engineered over much improved Brana Vlasic.  This is the 3rd time they have faced each other with Dr. Le winning twice.

Youngest brother John Alto has his own cookout, albeit a mini one.  John won the U18 event on saturday besting Sang Lien of Nortridge 3-2 18-16 in the 5th.  On sunday evening, long after the crowds dissipated once the Open final was done, John once again showed his dominance by taking the U16 over Ignacio Ascencio of Mexico.

The closest, oldest brother Earl, came to winning an event was a 2nd place finish in the U2500.  But he did have some notable wins:  he won over Ben Johnson in the SF of U2500.  In the U22 mens, the finals came to a 3 player RR with Trevor Runyan placing first with two wins.  For the first time, Earl beat Don to cement his name in 2nd place. 

This tournament will be remembered for the upsets that occured in the Open event.

Group 1:  Eric Owens, Rob van Lier, Tung Pham, Trevor Runyan

Eric Owens came to the tournament sluggish and appeared out of practice.  Trevor won 4-0 over Eric.  After the match, Eric defaulted the 2 matches in his RR group.  Tung Pham, a lefty, could not keep up with a faster game of Trevor.  Rob dominated Tung Pham with his combo racket giving Tung a lot of headaches.  Trevor and Rob advanced.

Group 2:  Thilina Piyadasa, Jessie Mai, Mustafa Ozcoler, Coffee Liu

Jessie Mai must have some difficulty dealing with past losses.  She lost to Thilina 4-0 in the SF at the Glendale tournament several weeks ago.  This time around, leading 3-0, it appeared she had rid herself of the stigma.  But it was not meant to be.  In the 4th game, she got tight and lost the next 4 games.  Thilina and Jessie advanced.

Group 3:  Du ChengYi, DJ Alto, Dr. Le, Tri Dinh

Dr. Le had beaten Du a year ago in the 7th.  Since then, Du has been on top in is encounters with Dr. Le.  This time around, was not exception.  Du over Dr. Le.  With Dr. Le not playing the role of the spoiler, the question was who would finish 1st and 2nd.  DJ was able to overcome the constant attacks by Du with a 7 game thriller win.

Group 4:  Steven Wang, Ben Johnson, John Thach Tran, Earl Alto

Earl had won over Ben Johnson just the day before.  Could he repeat?  Ben avenged his loss and completely dominated Earl with a 4-0 win.  I could tell Ben wanted to win the group.  He fought hard against Steven but it was not meant to be.  Match to Steven 4-3.  Steven finished 1st and Ben came in 2nd.

The QF matches are set:  Ben Johnson vs Thilina Piyadasa, Steven Wang vs Jessie Mai, Trevor Runyan vs Du ChengYi and DJ Alto vs Rob van Lier.  Steven and DJ had easy wins over their opponents.  Trevor must have studied his previous loss to Du ChengYi in the Open RR at Berkeley earlier this year losing 4-2.  Seems like Trevor is a much tougher young man, quiet, reserved and focused.  He believed in himself.  He believed he could dethrone the reigning San Diego Open champion.  And he did, beating Du with a 4-3 narrow victory.

The match between Ben and Thilina was an Epic.  Including the times in between games, this match over cose to 70 minutes long.  Thilina had dominated their last few encounters, the last one a month ago, a 3-0 win at the non sanctioned Fred Martin Memorial tournament.  Ben forced game 7 to win.

In one SF, Trevor faced Steven Wang.  In the other SF, DJ and Ben Johnson had to square off.  With Trevor's win over Du, he was pumped.  I am sure for those who did not notice, former Sunset TTC member now living in San Diego, Derek Poon was coaching Trevor.  Possibly Trevor was exhausted from his QF win.  Steven cements his place in the Open finals.  Trevor had spent several days in San Diego as the guest of the SDTTA.  His training with Stellan and the San Diego juniors have paid off.  Don Alto on the other hand kept on rolling.  He was mildly challenged by Ben.  In the end, Ben could not pull it out.  Don wins 4-2

The finals are set:  Steven Wang vs Don Alto.  Spectators are filling in.  Steven was sharp in the first game.  There was no hesitation on Steven's forehand to attack every possible shot.  Don, on the other hand, was a bit tentative, FH loops were inaccurate mostly overshooting the table.  His backhand blocks likewise were very impressive.  Game 1 to Steven at 5.

The 2nd game was close.  DJ won several points by placing the opening shot deep to Steven's BH.  Don had several chances to lead by 2 but was unable due to several errors.  At 8-8, with Steven serving, Don pushed a heavy underspin to the BH that Steven was unable to return.  In the next point, DJ once again opened with a soft spinny loop to the BH and a counter looping point ensued with Steven finally hits one out.  DJ serves for the final point with Steven looping off the table.  Game to DJ 11-8.

Game 3 was a see-saw affair.  Steven had a 5-2 lead and then DJ wins the next 5 points to lead 7-5.  After several exchanges, DJ leads 10-7.  Steven does not give up.  He unleashes aBH rip that DJ blocks to the middle of the table and finishes the point with a powerful FH loop wide to DJ's BH.  4 more points by Steven gives him the 3rd game.  DJ walks back to Stellan extremely dejected.

The 4th game started out like the 3rd.  Steven romps to a 5-1 lead.  At 7-2, it looked like this was going to be lopsided.  Steven was relentless in his attacking game.  At this point, he looped one into DJ's body and DJ was in an awkward position but managed to return the ball.  It seems Steven was surprised the ball came back and was unprepared to return and tentatively blocked the ball off the table.  It was now 7-3 in Steven's favor.  This gave DJ some life and he claws back to tie it a 8-8.  For the 2nd game in a row, DJ was leading 10-9, and lost at deuce again.  Steven leads 3-1.

As in the last two games, Steven goes up with a lead.  He is unable to hold on to it and finds the score 5-5.  Steven serves which looks like a no spin ball and DJ pops the ball in the middle and surprisingly, Steven hits the ball out.  In the next point, DJ returns favour by hitting an easy put away off the table.  DJ maintains a slim lead at 8-6, then 9-6 and has game point at 10-7.  Steven gets two points and at 10-9, Stellan calls a time out.  DJ wins the 5th with a good FH placement for an easy point.

In the 6th game, momentum has switched to DJ.  He runs up 4 points to lead 4-0.  Stevens serves 2 inside out that DJ fails to return. Finally Steven catches up to 8-8, then 9-9.  DJ wins the next two points to even the games at 3-3.

The crowd goes wild.  Majority of the crowd cheers for DJ.  The game was close and tied at 4-4. DJ wins the next two points.  Watching Steven, he looks slightly off balance and flat.  He blocked several balls out.  DJ holds a 10-6 lead and finally wins the match at 11-8.  SDTTA members run towards Stellan to savour the victory.  It was a great weekend for the Altos, SDTTA and most specially DJ.

It was good to see old friends from Phoenix; Marco Borillo, Matt Winkler, Felix Shtorper.  Palo Alto TTC was well represented by Natalie Sun, Isabel Chu, Anthony Chu and Nathaniel Chu.  Also worth noting, Lloyd McQueen playing 4200 doubles with much improved youngster Will Graff wearing identical "Team Robofit" and their name silkscreened in the back of their shirts. Excellent idea, Lloyd. 

Going back to the age events, Newman Cheng beat club mate David Lu to win U10 boys.  In the 13 girls, Emmy Cheng repeated her victory over Diane Jiang 3-1.  Emmy had faced Diane in the U10 finals at the last Nationals in Las Vegas.  Isabel Chu won the U13 Girls event.  Ethan Chua wins the U13 Boys event over Erick Shahnazari 3-0.  It was rather disappointing to have only 2 entries in the U16 Girls event.  Jasmine Nguyen wins 3-1 over Emmy Cheng.

A great tournament as usual with the exception of saturday morning glitch.  These NATT tournaments are the gold standard other tournaments judged by. 

A reader suggested I get either players or coaches to comment on the matches or shed some light.  Last saturday I went to San Diego to give Raul Alto videos of Don and Earl.  I managed to speak to Stellan, albeit a very short time.  Stellan said he felt bad not calling the time in the 3rd game with DJ leading 10-7. DJ went on to lose 5 straight points and the game. He told DJ to forget the previous game and focus on a quicker transition when moving towards the table when receiving short serves or short pushes and getting back to the ready position for the next shot.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me.