U.S. Open

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I had a relaxing 3-day weekend and lots of friends and family time. I love summer and weekends :).

This weekend was also a big one for U.S. pongers -- the 2008 U.S. Open went down in Las Vegas! This is an annual 5-star tournament (5-star is the highest ranking you can get, and the number of stars is based on the amount of prize money offered) that is "open" to ALL players around the world. Lots of international players come to participate in this tournament. From what I heard from my friends there, it was a good time (I don't, however, know if it was a good time because of the ping pong or the "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" type thing, if you know what I mean).

Anyhow, it was a big big tournament. "28 nations, 700 players, 91 tables, 57 events, and 100 degrees," states the USATT US Open coverage. Not bad, not bad. The U.S.'s #1 woman and former Chinese national team member, Gao Jun, won the US Open women's title. Yay. I hope she does well in the Olympics! Since I wasn't at the US Open, I can't really say what it was like. From the results, I don't really recognize many of the names because they're mostly international players, and I don't keep up too much with them. But I did recognize some up and comers: Ethan Chua placed 2nd in Boys Under 11, and "John John" Alto won the Boys Under 13 event. Yay, congrats to them! It's hard to win an event at the US Open because of the large number of international players, but they pulled through :).

I'm sad that I didn't get to go to the US Open, but it's okay. If you want more results, you can either visit butterflyonline.com or http://www.usatt.org/magazine/08jul-aug/OpenCoverage.shtml.

My favorite part of the weekend, however, was watching the Wimbledon Gentlemen's Final. It was AMAZING. Here's a ghetto clip of the last 6 minutes of the match from Youtube. Enjoy!