US Open Table Tennis Championships-2025 (16–21 December 2025)

[hope2getgood]

All valid points. I managed to do all but #2 - Competitive. I did enjoy losing to high level players as well as making new friends and everything else.

Maybe now that I know better I can navigate such an event and my expectations better the next time around.

 

[NextLevel]

Any of the things a TD could do to evaluate and classify a player could be thwarted by the player simply by playing poorly in the in-person evaluator supervised session.

maybe the only realistic and simple thing to do is make club-trained kid only events (much like the adult and junior events) and let the ringers duke it out while leaving the non pro trained kids free of the ringers... but are there enough of such kids to make their separate divisions? Probably not.

You could mandate that those who did not do 3-4 tourneys to firm up their ratings do an in-person session the day before the tourney... still, this means extra expense for both kid and tourney... then if adjustments are made, it RUINS the draw and makes it 1000% for the tourney operator to make a smooth tourney.

You could take away the lower wins for a player who won the U1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, and 1600 and let him keep the highest division win... but really, that will solve some of the unfairness and make such players not enter... then tourney may not break even. Would work if there was a big moneyed sponsor... but our sport isn't there.

Just about any means to mitigate unfairness can be thwarted or had worse unintended consequences.

Any kind of solutions, outside of TD using own personal and final assessment/judgement will not be effective IMO... and a TD with such power could be a good or bad thing.

That takes us back to where we are.

Yesterday, and today, to play in a big tourney, you have to play 4-5 levels above your level just to have a fighting chance to advance, let alone go deep into your division.

The question is whether the sandbagging in the adult events dissuade more entries than it encourages. Jury still out on that one as USATT wants the entry fees. But if possible, with thr limitations of scheduling, the idea of defaulting a player from lower events after their highest event win has always been available.

 

[Der_Echte]

Lookin at our Admin's sig... All I want to see for Christmas is his spin, not his footwork.

Ironically, Next Level would be amazed at my current footwork... I can really cover that wide wide Fh even pushing 60 yrs old... I do not think he ever saw me when I had any footwork. I only had spin and a high toss serve.

NL gave me an acronym nickname back then a decade plus ago. Something to do with a high toss serve and a bad reputation name.

 

[Der_Echte]

Oh, I saw Rich Dewitt at the US Open and had one rice dinner with him.