hello and welcome warm weather we’ve missed at the auburn table tennis club -

newly joining us for play this past week – monday – giovanni fuentes (young son and fine new hitter, of steve fuentes), and debora mower (rekindling an interest in the sport after a multi-decade sabbatical).   on wednesday, ricky ward found us, with assistance from school mate abhijeet lall.  also, not exactly new but long overdue, this past wednesday, mike gaynor fixed the gps on his car, remembered our address, and for the first time in about a year hit the round robin.  nice to see you one and all.

in memoriam – we learned this past week that one of the original club members john jensen passed away in late april.  the archives report that john was the 23^rd (i.e. #23) in the first “monday” group (which puts him in the hallowed category of a founding member).

from our first club president (current treasurer) tim aquino: “john was, sincerely, one of the nicest individuals i have ever met in or out of table tennis. he was the president of the lincoln hills club.  i hear that the attitude of many of us sour as we age. there was none of that with john. always a good winner and equally as nice when losing. it was always a struggle playing him but win or lose it was always a real pleasure. i am saddened at his passing.” 

“old boy” bill indreboe noted “first time we played a match, i believe (really) we played about 30 deuces on table 1.  tim was watching i think because we took so long to finish.”

thank you john for sharing some time and fun with us. 

wednesday may 19, 2010 – our 5^th anniversary celebration evening at the club.  we will hit some doubles.  we will hit some “king of the hill” (handicapped – so everyone will be competitive).  we will hit some “open play.”   we will hit the soda and pizza.  bill indreboe is coordinating, with assistance from some others.  just for a head count, please rsvp on this, if you can, to wkochenderfer@cs.com.    guaranteed to have some fun.  flyers for this event were distributed wed. may 5, also sent out via email.  we do hope to attract some visitors, so if you know someone who might have been thinking about this, here is your chance to be a hero.  if there are enough rsvps that request it, we will set up the robot for people to hit.  now that’s what we call fun!

desserts?  oh yes.  rsvp on this too, quick, before you are drafted into service.  we need 3 volunteers to cook something up for a post-pizza snack (brownies, cookies, something suitable).  nothing dramatic.  be the first kid on your block to sign up and you will be entered for the t-shirt raffle on the 19^th!

t-shirts, did you mention t-shirts?   heck yes.  they’re beautiful, and they improve your play.  a paltry $13.  see these on the web site or see them on the players at the club.  wear the shirt while handing out auburn table tennis club business cards!  wear them around town!  wear them to work!

tournament promotions.   we have a few “regulars” who go to local tournaments.  and then we have some “irregulars” who go to lots of them.  recently (last weekend), john hanna found himself the subject of a pre-tournament press release.  in the “some top players to watch” portion of the icc (milpitas club) blurb, pimping the 250 plus player turnout, check out the last bullet point below:

                        “some top players to watch

·         top juniors from china - liu xibo, wang steven, shen hailong

·         u.s. national men's team members and olympians - reed barney, nguyen khoa

·         indian national men's team members - kashyap anal, gidla jiten

·         iranian national men's team member - molla zaman

·         top current u.s. national junior players -timothy wang, preiss austin, zhang lily

·         former us national junior & cadet team members - malek auria, runyan trever

·         top junior from canada - teddy wu

·         current us no.1 - u 20 girls, u 12 boys - tian maggie, krish avvari

·         all time favorites - dora kurimay, brana vlasic

·         us coaching advisory committee chairman - richard mcafee ( 2200 rated )

·         nine usatt finals (six first places) in 2009/10 and ”giant killer” – john hanna

yes we’re so proud of our giant killer.  way to put the fear into them, john.

monday protocol reminder(s) - “open play” format is the rule for the day.  if you are practicing (not playing a match), this is fine (and encouraged) – but keep in mind to rotate off the table in roughly the same time as a match is being played.  this will help keep players moving through and to tables.  easy way to gauge your time is to observe when an adjacent table starts and finished a match.   if you win your match and wish to stay on the table, that is fine; invite the challenger on!  but do rotate out then, if there are more than 2 players waiting for a table.

if we are over run with players, we will announce the request to play matches best 2 out of 3, for 15 or 20 minutes, so we can keep things moving.  if you are playing doubles, stick to best 3 out of 5 at all times.

new players – don’t be bashful about asking someone to hit with you, or to solicit a bit of advice or a tip here and there. 

wednesday round robin wrap up -  may 5^th – another 21 players, plus one more for open play.  three players gaining close to or exactly 50 rating points!  all of last week’s group winners appear to claim their “next table up” prize.  

group 4:  ricky ward ties with mark copeland, but won the head-to-head match, and moves up next week.  what’s in the water over there at wm. jessup?  these players are all good.  group 3:  nikolai z. administers some beatings and wins the group.  we note jp solly is up almost 100 points, though, over the last 2 weeks.   group 2: mostly played according to the seeding – anson k. prevails, taking some time during a break to offer tips to group 1 players facing hardbat sensation abhijeet lall.

group 1:  seeding meant nothing here.  of the 10 matches, 5 were upsets.  some sweat was sweat and possibly one or two borderline inappropriate exclamations were heard as everyone battled hard with abhijeet.   a 600 point rating difference means nothing.  abhijeet managed to take at least one game from each player, and also eked out one narrow match victory.  john hanna and bill k. went 3-1 in the group, with a 5^th game deciding their match and the group winner (which went to bill).  this was courteously noted by john as being a hat trick of 3 wednesdays in a row that the club president has won table one.     

for wed. night, - if you will be late (after 6:45 pm), be sure to call  bill at 916-275-0899 or tom at 530-613-0101 and let us know.  if you reach us, we will get you on a table.

also for wednesdays, tables permitting, if you wish to come and hit for fun (i.e. not participate in the round robin), that is fine and the club will charge $2 per person for that.  this is on a “hit or miss” basis.

bill kochenderfer