Here is what the participants thought about the 1st Fox Valley Open tournament held on 3/26/2011. In addition to the testimonials shown below, I was told that some participants called Park District and thanked them for well run tournament only to be told that Park District wasn’t responsible for organizing it.

Swavek,

Of the 5 tournaments that I have participated in, yours was the most well run!
I felt very comfortable with everything. Still, I didn’t win, but I am not discouraged
as I am very much a beginner.
I thought the players were all wonderful!
I have only one suggestion for improvement. Please explain the rules on
legal serves. More than one player I played used illegal serves!

Thanks again, and GREAT JOB!!! Please thank your darling daughter, too!

Mary (Marzano)

p.s. I am interested in entering the next tournament.

Dear Swavek,

Thank you for sending the link to the pictures. Thank you very much for all the work you did to put on the tournament. I enjoyed it and I think your preparations were excellent. Everything seemed to go along very well, as far as I could see. I appreciate your efforts.

Sincerely,
Dick Loescher

Congratulations on a great tournament, and most of all, thanks for keeping the beginner bracket age appropriate with the old folks on one table and the small kids on another.

I didn’t win any matches myself, but I had to switch paddles a day before the tournament and I still gave those high-rated guys a challenge I hope. I’ll be looking forward to the next one.

Muneer Hoffman

Hi Swavek,

Thank you for putting together the tournament. The organization was excellent.

I do want to say in confidence that maybe there is a better way to distinguish between beginner and intermediate players and place them accordingly. I thought of myself as a beginner and only put myself in the intermediate bracket to separate myself from Jenny when we tried to sign up. Well, three of the players in my bracket did not give me very much of a match (and I was pretty sick). And, from peeking over, I thought many of the beginners were better than many of the intermediate players (at least those intermediate players in brackets E and F).
Of course, doing anything other than having players place themselves would involve more work on your part, but maybe in the future you could suggest to older players who have been playing less than some number of years (3 ????) that they should be beginners. I don’t know but maybe that would be a start.

Thank you again Looking forward to the next one,

John Lipa

Hi Swavek,
I enjoyed playing in the tournament Saturday. It’s helped me identify a real weak point in my game, i.e. my match strategy.
I look forward to some tournaments in the future.
Thank you for putting all the effort and work into making it happen.

I have a minor suggestion for your scoring sheets. The tables should be lettered, while the players should be numbered. Also the nametags should have the players number on them.

Keep up the good work.
Ron Chin

—

Swavek,
Thanks for your email and the success of your tournament. I enjoyed my time. You got my name and email correct. Thanks again.
Simon Nagel

Hi Swavek,

I was going to say goodbye and great job on Saturday, but you were in the middle of the awards so I decided not to bother you right then.

You did a phenomonal job, congratulations! I think the park district has to be pleased to see a solid market for ping pong. It will certainly justify
the purchase of the new tables. I”m really excited about the tables, this will mean the return of the over 2000 level players to our club. We’ ll all
get better. Thank you again.

I had a great time. For me it was a real wake up call to realize that I am in dreadful overweight physical shape (I was constantly out of breath!)
So the tournaments will motivate me to improve my game and get into shape. Thanks for that!

Only one suggestion for the tournament. I noticed that some players would walk away from the games and we would have to go looking for them.
I think we should serve notice that if you are not at your station at the proper time that you could lose points/games etc. Just a thought to
keep things running smoothly.

Thanks again, Swavek,

Best Regards,

Gary Cudworth

Hi Swavek – thanks again for organizing this tourney – a resounding success! The only change you may want to consider is instead of having a blind draw to see who advanced to the finals, perhaps it should be based on best record, or fewest games lost – somehow earned. Maybe next time we’ll have an even number of divisions, which would make this irrelevant.

Attached is the photo of the intermediate winners you may want to add.
jb (John Brandt)

Swavek, you did a great job, you showed great organization skills. The organization was great, the only thing that some were pointing out was that the second of each group should get a chance to compete for the podium by playing the winner of another group. I don’t know if this makes sense. David from my group brought it up and he talked to Gene about it, and I think they both agreed it would be a good idea. Anyways, I thought the organization went great, thanks for your hard work!
Ramiro (Lynch)

Hi Swavek,
Thank you for a well organized, well attended tournament. I really had a good time and now I want to play for more times.

I am definitely going to sign up for the next tournament.

BTW, are we going to have more tables and more spaces for Wed/Fri open play when the new tables are in?

John (Liu)

Hi Swavek, the tournament was very well run. Thanks for all your hard work.

There are some players that are interested in the next tournament, have you got
the forms on-line??

Thanks, Sandy