CTTC Sandpaper Tournament

The Charleston Table Tennis club held it's 1st ever Sandpaper Tournament Monday December 12, 2011.

It was met with much anticipation as well as apprehension.  All those years of skill development and expensive rubber acquisition to fit the perfect blade... Out the Window!

All of the participants in the event were given the same sandpaper paddles to compete with. The paddles were kept inaccessible until the first serve of the match.  Yes that's right, no practice.  The competitive edge was negated.

The evening's event  included 25 CTTC members, randomly arranged into 4 groups.  The 1st round of action was a round robin style of competition, resulting in the best win/loss recorded achieved advancing to the 2nd round of play. The four advancing competitors drew lots to determine the semi-final competition line up, followed by a championship final best of 5 games to determine the champion.

The following narrative offered by our club president, (Dale Goff) sums up the action that evening.

"...well, we completed the first ever sandpaper tournament on Monday. Eric Spang did a great job of running the tournament.

As I predicted, the winner would be a surprise to all of us.  I
suspected Dale Holstein, Sr. however the winner was at the other end of the age spectrum.

The semi finals consisted of Sural Abduijelil, Ron Wilkerson, Arky Myatezh and Jordan Covelli.   In a closely contested final match, Jordan Covelli outlasted long time top player Arky Myatezh.

Congratulations to Jordan Covelli, our first ever CTTC Sandpaper Tourney Champion.