TopSpin results   

Monday Feb 05

North York Ontario

Yesterday at theTopspin Open, young rising international star James Lu of Taiwan emerged victorious in the Mens Open, and what a treat he put on for the audience! First he took out Alex Li in the second round and in the quarter finals, played one of the best matches yet seen in Ontario for years.

His match with Colin Grenidge was not only interesting, but as exciting as it comes, with both players looping from both wings, however he was able to move Colin around ever so slighly and used lots of reverse attacks via his forehand and backhand; his systematic way of countering Colin from the backhand side and using his forehand with the body shift motion, certainly caught Colin napping and many times when he used his reverse backhand motion to Colin's forehand and down the centre.... But what a forehand he has when you serve fast and long, he would hit that ball 150 miles an hour

down the forehand side.. tough shot to respond to!! The scores were 7,6,8 in his favour.

In the Finals, he faced Amil Ali. In game one James came ouf firing and Amil was certainly off cue, missing everything and not playing as he should, even his loops were erratic, but as he comtemplated the second game he adjusted and kept the pace 1-1, 2-2, 3-3,4-4 etc and down the stretch they go until at 10-10 came one of the most dramatic points, the ball tough the net went high during the initial rally and forced Ali to defend and with his subtle touch has some how able to just barely get the ball ever so slighly  away to James' forehand side, casing James to back off... and then came a variety of attacks, to and fro they went, until Amil was able to put away the ball wide to James backhand side! What a point and.... what a rally

You can see that this was the point to decide the game and sure enough, make no mistake, Amil pounced on the next point and thus levelled score.

Games are now a game a piece! Game 3 continued as the same with both players looping and attacking from both wings and with James at the table and powering upand finally winning a tough 11-9 game. Game 4 went all the way point for point until Amil was up 8-10 with James serving, somehow was able to level the score at 10. With all the dramatics and point for point, James was able to finally win 15-13!

TOUGH BATTLE

U 2000 Sean Carrington finally wins his 2000 event (congrats)

On the junior side, Louis Wong won his U600 event as he prepares for the Ontario winter Games to be held next month in Barrie.

Many thanks to Elena for undertaking this task and for a job well done, and to the Jewish Centre and North York, See you all at the Crescent town Open followed by the Mississauga Rattlers Round Robin

Event      Winner                                         Runner Up                                       3/4th

U600       Loius Wong                                 Hollie Lau

U 1200    Oleg Martins                               Kirk Stevens

U1600    Terence Leung                             Yam Hing Chu

U 2000   Sean Carrington                           Thang Nuguyen

U2450    James Lu                                      Scott Lu

OPEN    James Lu                                      Amil Ali