2019 Aurora Cup

The 6th Aurora Cup will be held on January 18, 19 & 20th, 2019 at Vaughan Athletic Center in Aurora, IL.

Sponsors

We are pleased to announce that JOOLA has agreed again to be the official tournament’s equipment sponsor of the 2019 Aurora Cup.

Additional sponsors are

Infogix Inc. (Trophy sponsor)	Highlander Transportation, Inc.(Equipment shipping sponsor)

What’s New

Tiered Round Robin Event

We are expanding the tournament again.  After expanding it to Friday evening in 2017 we are now adding one more event on Friday, so participants of this tournament can get 3 full days of ping pong mania.

This event is called ‘Tiered Round Robin’ (#1).  The event will have 3 divisions and 2 rounds – Qualifying and Playoff.  Both rounds will have a giant round robin format.  All players who enter this event will be sorted from highest to lowest rated and divided into 3 divisions (A, B & C) .  Each division will have a maximum of 36 spots divided into 6 groups of 6 players each.  Maximum number of spots in this event is 36 x 3 = 108.  Each group of 6 will have 2 tables to play on.

The Qualifying round will start at 9 am and finish roughly around 1 pm.  All players advance to the Playoff round.  If a player took 1st place in his group he will play the other 5 players who took 1st place in his division, 2nd place winner will play the other 5 2nd place winners, and so on.

The Playoff round will start about 2 pm and last until about 6 pm.  Since the first 3 spots in Playoff round in each group get trophies or trophies and prize money, each entrant has a 50% chance of winning one.

Therefore we are ordering 3 x 6 x 3 = 54 trophies for this event alone and that is why it is priced at $50.

LED Lights

LED lights were installed in the the Field House at the Vaughan Athletic Center in June.  I measured light strength with a dedicated meter at 90 evenly spaced spots and got readings between 460 and 848 lux with an average of 681 lux.  The old readings were about 400 lux.

So the visibility conditions on each court should be much better now – truly worthy of a 4 star tournament.

Events and Prizes

Trophies

We will continue to offer trophies to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in ALL events.  Doubles events winners will get 2 trophies per team.  In Open Singles event trophies will be also offered for 4th, 5th – 8th places.  All events will have matches for 3rd and 4th place to decide who gets the trophy or cash and trophy.

The trophies that will be offered in 2019 will be similar to those in 2018. They use paint that closely matches Olympic medal colors: gold, silver, copper & white for 4th – 8th place. The trophies are made of solid crystal (not acrylic) and are pretty heavy. The paddle part has dimensions of a normal paddle. The whole trophy is 10 inches tall and 9 inches wide.  The will NOT come in a decorative box, since these boxes were partly responsible for 50% breakage rate in 2018.

Registration

Online registration will let you register and pay via PayPal using a credit card or PayPal account. The traditional mail-in registration blank entry form can be downloaded here. If this is the first time you are playing in a sanctioned tournament please read this page.

Note to Canadian and other foreign players. Please read if you want to avoid paying USATT membership fee.

Venue

Vaughan Athletic Center is located at 2121 West Indian Trail in Aurora, IL and was built in 2006. The Field House, where the tournament will take place is a 33,000 ft facility with non-slippery blue floor similar to Gerflor. To get a sense of the venue conditions please visit this page.

Equipment

We will have 36 JOOLA 3000 SC and 2 JOOLA 2000 S tables and fully barriered courts as seen in the picture above.  Here is the gym layout  showing how tables will be setup and numbered.

All tables will be available for sale after the tournament at prices shown above.  To reserve yours please contact Ed Hogshead (815-262-1868) or Steven Chan at JOOLA (240-308-6522) directly.

We will use white 40 mm plastic JOOLA Prime balls.

Driving and Parking

Vaughan Athletic Center is located just a mile south of the Orchard Rd. exit off of the I-88 tollway. It is about 40 miles west of downtown Chicago. The parking around the venue can accommodate about 260 cars. In the event the venue parking fills up, additional parking will be available offsite at the Party City parking lot just 1/2 mile west of the venue (2292 W. Indian Trail Rd). Please visit the venue page to see the parking arrangement.

Dining

There are several restaurants along the Orchard Rd near the venue but more restaurants are located in the vicinity of the Fox Valley Mall on the east side of Aurora. The maps of restaurants locations is here.

Hotels

There are several hotels within 2 miles from the venue.  All properties charge a tax of 9% on top of the price.  These hotels confirmed a discount.

Holiday Inn Aurora North-Naperville – 2424 W Sullivan Rd, Aurora – (630) 806-7400 – $110 for King bed & $110 for 2 Queen beds room.  Discount (group code) A19.  Discount expires January 4th, 2019.  Book directly via this link.

Hampton Inn & Suites Aurora – 2423 Bushwood Dr, Aurora – (630) 907-2600 – $120 for king bed and $135 per night for 2 queen beds. Free breakfast included.  Discount expires December 27th, 2018.

Candlewood Suites – 2625 W Sullivan Rd, Aurora – (630) 907-9977 – $81 for Studio Suite with Queen size bed, fully furnished. $89 for Studio Suite with 2 Queen Size beds, fully furnished.  The discount code is IP32M and it expires 12/30/2018.

This hotel is a bit further from the venue (10 miles)

Homewood Suites – 4320 Meridian Parkway, Aurora – (630)-978-2222 – a special rate of $99.00 for a one queen studio and $109.00 for a one king bedroom. Free breakfast included.  Ask for Aurora Cup tablet tennis tournament group rates to get the above rates.  No discount code established.

These hotels have not offered the discount, but the rates listed below are last year’s rates so you can get an idea of the cost.

North Aurora Hotel – 201 Smoketree Ln, North Aurora (i.e. 3 miles from venue) – (331)-205-1700 – Double bed room for $65.00/night. King Bed $55 and Queen bed $50. More information at this link.

Baymont Inn & Suites Chicago/Aurora – 308 S Lincolnway St, North Aurora – (630)-897-7695 – no discount, $75 per night for 2 queen beds room

Air Travel

If you are flying in, the Chicago O’Hare International airport is 38 miles from the venue. Chicago Midway International Airport is 45 miles from the venue. Most of the travel from the airport to the venue is on tollways & freeways. For example I-294, I-355 and I-88 are all tollways.  Cash tolls are twice the amount of electronic toll.  E.g. 75 cents vs $1.50.

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding the tournament please contact Tournament Director Swavek Lorenc – 630-251-8860 – swaveklorenc@yahoo.com.

I hope you can join us for this great event.

Swavek Lorenc

Tournament Director