The 2014 Butterfly Aurora Cup, the first 4 star tournament organized by the Fox Valley Table Tennis club took place on frigid weekend of January 18 & 19, 2014. It was hosted at the Vaughan Athletic Center in Aurora, IL – a 33,000 ft facility with beautiful blue, non-slippery floor. It was played on 38 tables on fully barriered 38 x 19 courts. The tournament received entries from 265 players and 254 of them showed up to play. Players from the following 20 states attended the tournament: Illinois (169 = 69%), Missouri (12), Wisconsin (9), Ohio (7), Iowa (7), Minnesota (7), Indiana (6), Florida (4), Kansas (3), Pennsylvania (3), Georgia (3), Kentucky (2), Mississippi (2), Maryland (2), Michigan (2), Tennessee (2), New Jersey (1), Texas (1), California (1) & Washington (1).
The tournament was made possible by generous assistance of the following organizations and individuals:
- Butterfly Inc. which brought in 38 brand new tables and over 400 barriers, streamed the featured matches live over the internet and offered additional assistance in upgrading the venue lighting.
- Infogix Inc. which contributed a portion of prize money, helped with marketing it (press release, ad for USATT magazine) and logistics (computer equipment, chairs, banner design)
- Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau – which worked with Park District officials to give us a break on the price of the venue rental.
- Fox Valley Park District – venue rental, assistance with venue preparation, upgrades to the lights & controlling the sunlight in the venue.
- Volunteers from our and other clubs who promoted the tournament locally: Steve Quist (Chicago Table Tennis Club), Abdarasool Mansoor Ali (Net And Paddle Club), Matthias Stender, Meinhard Korte (Fox Valley Table Tennis Club). Others I may not know about.
- Volunteers who worked tirelessly to prepare and cleanup the venue for the competition: Adam Koziol, Shawn Pjesky, John and Jim Brandt, Nancy Eckert, Meinhard Korte, Thomas McCormak, Zita & Robert Bayr, David Soltwish, Kagin Lee, Jorge Vanegas, Jacek Wisniewski, James Madison, Liu Kai. If I forgot someone please tell me so I can add them.
- Our officials: Kagin Lee (Tournament Referee), Jorge Vanegas (Chief Umpire). Umpires: Federico Bassetti, Andrew Moy, Zachary Moy, Deepak Somarapu.
- Volunteer Tournament Operations staff: Tarun Chawla, Andrew Moy, Zachary Moy, Wilson Chen.
Results
| Event – Click for full results | First Place | Second Place | Third Place (s) | Fifth – Eight Place (s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1900 RR | Narasimhan Tige Ramakrishnan | Joseph Masminster | Henry Polecki Bun-Hiong Carls Chua |
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| Under 1400 RR | Sid Naresh | Advitheey Chelikani | Adam Gray William Goodfellow |
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| Under 18 Youth | Nathan Hsu | Tapabrata Dey | Maria Castillo Alex Averin |
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| Open Singles RR | Mingyu Shi | Cheng Li | Jim Butler Yi Chi Zhang |
Micaiah Skolnick Sameh Awadallah Fernando Yamazato Diwei Shi |
| Under 1700 RR | Deepak Somarapu | Josh Chung | Eryk Emilianowicz Steve Hersey |
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| Under 1200 RR | Kyle Hess | Zigmas Vievesis | Trey Runcie Zohayr Khoja |
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| Under 2000 RR | Xiaoming Zhang | Ken Oh | Krzysztof Szostak Lucas De Fabry |
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| Under 800 RR | Suraj Menon | Omar Salas-Lieves | Gautham Arun Sebastian Hersey |
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| Recreational | Kei Wai Lai | Lawrence Tran | Shawn Pjesky Kung Chao |
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| Under 2300 RR | Artur Kurek | Maria Kretschmer | Austin Z. Preiss Paulius Gurklys |
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| Under 1800 RR | Joseph Masminster | Mansoor Ali Abdulrasool | Norman Riek Simon Liang |
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| Open Doubles RR | Mingyu Shi / Diwei Shi | Yi Chi Zhang / Cheng Li | Fernando Yamazato / Felipe Morita Samson Dubina / Sameh Awadallah |
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| Under 2500 RR | Fernando Yamazato | Sameh Awadallah | Micaiah Skolnick Yitong Liu |
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| Under 1600 RR | Deepak Somarapu | Hui Lin | Rohon Roychoudhury Nikola Terzic |
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| Under 1000 RR | Danny Sternfield | Thomas P. McCormack | Jonathan Dyer Zohayr Khoja |
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| Under 14 Youth | Lavanya Maruthapandian | David Sun | Sid Naresh Sarah Zhou |
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| Women Singles RR | Yue Wu | Yitong Liu | Maria Kretschmer Barbara Wei |
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| Under 2400 RR | Nathan Hsu | Gabriel Skolnick | Felipe Morita Wojciech Wolski |
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| 40 and Over | Don R. Hamilton | Spenser Minh Lam | Ladislav Sranko Zach Pan |
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| Under 2200 RR | Nathaniel Ming Curran | Arkadiusz Zyworonek | Lukasz Niewiarowski Tapabrata Dey |
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| Under 1750 RR | Vidhan Chandra | Lavanya Maruthapandian | Katrin Maldre Dusty Rabjohn |
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| Under 3800 Doubles RR | Gabriel Skolnick / Luke Reft | Marcel Borcean / Gabriel Bardan | Matthias Stender / Bui.ChuaBun-Hiong Carls Chua Krzysztof Szostak / Henry Polecki |
Pictures
Winners of each event are shown here. Those that are missing left before the ceremony or were playing another match.
Picture Albums
Three photographers took pictures at the event.
ChenChin Woo published this album of pictures:
Peter Hua shared the following pictures:
Swavek Lorenc published these pictures:
Butterfly streamed live all feature matches on table 2. Here are shortened feeds from day 1 and day 2.
Comments & Press Coverage
If you are interested in what others had to say about their experience at the tournament I published the feedback I asked for here.
The local press has published 2 articles. Beacon News published this article. The Voice published an article but I could only find a mention of the tournament on their Facebook page.
Thank you again for participation. Thank you volunteers for helping make this tournament a memorable experience for all.
Swavek Lorenc
Tournament Director
fvttc.org 