The second edition of the Butterfly Aurora Cup attracted 310 players from United States, Canada, Jamaica and Haiti, but only 295 played in the events submitted to USATT for processing. 50 more players attended this year than last year. This made it the 5th largest tournament in the past 12 months, behind 2014 JOOLA North American Team – 803 players, 2014 US National Championships (728), US Open (633) and 2014 LA Open Table Tennis Tour (305).   The players came from the following states: Illinois (215), Wisconsin (23), Missouri (19), Ohio (17), Indiana (13), Minnesota (9), Iowa (6), Michigan (6), Ontario/Canada (4), Maryland (3), California (3), Kansas (3), Tennessee (3), Texas (3), Florida (2), New York (2), Pennsylvania (2), Georgia (1), Massachusetts (1), Mississippi (1), New Hampshire (1), Virginia (1)

Tournament used a new table layout to provide better viewing experience for the spectators and those who watched the tournament online. Also new for this year was a large 27 inch tall trophy – the ‘Aurora Cup’ – funded by the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. The smaller crystal trophies were very much the favorite of those who earned them. They will surely come back next year.

With the addition of U2100 event the tournament featured 23 rated, age-restricted and recreational events. The U2100 event with its 32 available spots filled up in less than 48 hours. All but 5 of 867 available spots in the entire tournament were filled making it 99% full.

Picture courtesy of  Bob Lockwood

Sponsors

This year’s tournament was supported by Butterfly which brought 38 tables and 450 barriers to make the playing conditions as good as possible.  A Naperville based software development company Infogix, Inc. also supported this years tournament with $1000 donation and rental of 96 chairs which greatly increased seating capacity.

Finally, the new Aurora Cup trophy was funded by the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.  This allowed tournament officials give Open Singles and Women Singles winners recognition given to such players at other major tournaments.

These pictures courtesy of Bob Lockwood

 


Mike Pfeiffer of AACVB, Open Singles winner Ruichao L Chen and tournament director Swavek Lorenc

The Crew

The tournament would not be possible without the contribution of the following individuals

Venue preparation was spread over several days and involved the following tasks:
Measuring courts on Sunday – John Brandt, Shawn Pjesky – 4 hours.
Hanging black plastic sunscreen – Monday (Tim Szot), Tuesday, Wednesday, Thrusday (2 -3 hours each night)
Transporting 96 chairs for additional seating – Jacek Wisniewski, Tom McCormack (3 hours)
Assembling 450 barriers – John & Jim Brandt, Arcot Naresh, Zita & Robert Bayr,
Hanging 2 light fixtures over tables 1 & 2 – Adam Koziel, Mike Pfeiffer, Shawn Pjesky, John Brandt
Awards area preparation podium, blue background, lights – Shawn Pjesky, Meinhard Korte, Mike Pfeiffer, Tim and Josh Szot
Control desks, draws & schedule of play tables – Zita Bayr, Shawn Pjesky

Smooth running of the tournament was accomplished thanks to experienced crew manning the control desk:
Zach Moy, Cecilia Navata, Joe Dault, Evelyn Wisniewski, Will Zidek, Andrew Moy

Our officials and control desk staff would not survive without lunch and dinner which was ordered and delivered by Norma Kowalczyk.

Our referee and officials kept the matches trouble free.
Kagin Lee – referee
Umpires: Jorge Vanegas, Andrew Moy, Joe Dault

Finally quick take down of equipment and cleanup was performed by:
Shawn Pjesky, Meinhard Korte, Zita & Robert Bayr, Tim and Josh Szot, Evelyn Wisniewski, Tm Szacilowski, Tom McCormack, Adam Koziel, Narayan Nagarathnam

Tournament Director would like to extend great thanks to all individuals involved in preparing and running the tournament.  Without your involvement the tournament wouldn’t be as big a success as it was.

Results

Here are the top 4 finishers in each event. Click on the event name to see detailed results.

Event First Place Second Place Third Place Fourth Place
Under 1900 RR Simon Liang Jasper Maniates-Selvin John Brandt Tadao (Tom) Inui
Under 1400 RR Steve Hersey Noah Lim Rohit Menon Ronald Cassidy
Under 18 Youth Tianming Xie Alexander Bu Alex Averin Andrew Peterson
Open Singles RR Ruichao L Chen Jim Butler Cheng Li Yi Chi Zhang
Under 1700 RR Yong Chen Ashish Kotnis Mehdi Barati James Madrid
Under 1200 RR Rikuto Namiki Rohit Menon Ken Robbins Kaibai Liu
Under 2000 RR Muris Silic Krzysztof Szostak HaeJoon Lee Ihor Falchuk
Under 800 RR Nandan Naresh Orkhon Bayaraa Weiming Michael Sun Brian Coons
Recreational Mingyang Li Marian Janicki Sarvesh Rao Justin Korte
Under 2300 RR Tianming Xie Micaiah Skolnick Austin Z. Preiss Alex Legaria
Under 1800 RR Pedro Garces John Oros Sanjib Das Serge Olingou
Open Doubles RR Cheng Li /
Yi Chi Zhang		 Ruichao L Chen /
Nathan Hsu		 Daniel R. Seemiller /
Joseph Cochran		 Emad Barsoum /
Sameh Awadallah
Under 2500 RR Emad Barsoum Sameh Awadallah Micaiah Skolnick Jim Butler
Under 1600 RR Soham Kotnis Quinn Baker Jianfeng Ren Ashish Kotnis
Under 1000 RR Sebastian Hersey Zita Bayr Cheryl Lim Tim Szot
Under 14 Youth Alexander Bu Tianming Xie Weiliang Jordan Sun Sid Naresh
Women Singles RR Yin Liu Maria Kretschmer Arefeh Sherafati Sonjay Henry
Under 2400 RR Alex Legaria Tianming Xie Austin Z. Preiss Wojciech Wolski
40 and Over Spenser Minh Lam Andrey Mokhov Arcot Naresh C.T. Pham
Under 2200 RR Tianming Xie Oliver Gartner Janusz Franeczek Alex Averin
Under 1750 RR Pedro Garces Eryk Emilianowicz Zeling Yu David Feerst
Under 3800 Doubles RR Paul Victor Pashuku /
Stanley Harn		 Ken Oh /
Jang Won Kim		 Sylwester Sobota/
Jerry Dydynski
Under 2100 RR Michael Wolski Ihor Falchuk Krzysztof Puchalski Seon Ho Kim

 

Awards Ceremony

We repositioned and beatified the the awards area more this year so that winners feel even more appreciated. Here are their pictures on the podium.


U1900
U1400

Under 18 Youth		 (No Picture)
Open Singles

U1700
U1200

U2000 (3rd place C.T. Pham not shown)
U800

Recreational
U2300

U1800
Open Doubles

U2500
U1600

U1000
Under 14 Youth

Women Singles		 (No picture taken)
U2400

40 and Over
U2200

U1750
U3800 Doubles

U2100

Pictures

Bob Lockwood of Full Armour Studios was kind enough to share some the pictures he took at the event.  I uploaded them here for you to enjoy.

Finally I would like to thank all participants who supported this tournament by signing up for it.  I hope we made your experience memorable and you will come back for the 2016 edition of the Butterfly Aurora Cup.

Sincerely,

Swavek Lorenc

Tournament Director