2006 US Open Teams Championships
By Richard Lee

North American Table Tennis has been running the North American Teams Championships in Baltimore since 1998 when the USA Table Tennis Association approached me to consider helping them put the event together. Since another party owned the event name at that time, we decided to change the title of the event to the North American Teams Championships. Ever since, we’ve heard plenty of people still refer to the Thanksgiving weekend event as the US Open Teams, however, they no longer will need to call it that. The US Open Teams Championships was resurrected this past weekend in Reno, Nevada, marking its come back after it was last held in Detroit, Michigan 9 years ago.

I want to personally thank Martin-Kilpatrick Company, the distributor for Butterfly, our official Table Sponsor of the event. I also would like to thank Paddle Palace’s participation as the official Ball Sponsor through Nittaku. ITTF and TMS International also supported the event by allowing the US Open Teams Championships to be the first event in the world to use the New Olympic Team Format. As a joint venture between USA Table Tennis and North American Table Tennis, our aim is to develop a new major event on the West coast since the US Open Championships and the North American Teams Championships are held annually on the East Coast.

ITTF entrusted USA Table Tennis with inauguration of the 2008 Olympic Games Team Competition Format. Doubles competition has been eliminated with the addition of Team Competition. On December 15^th, 2005, the ITTF introduced the new format of the 2008 Olympic Team Competition. The goal of the new format is to make the competition fair where a single member of a team will not be able to dominate the team tie. All three players are important because a player is limited to two matches in the best three out of five team tie. This balances the team competition so that one strong player cannot force a win. It requires a team to be three deep strong to have a good chance at winning the team tie.

As the event approached, it became more and more apparent that weather was going to be a major factor. A dangerous storm throughout the west coast that also affected the main route from the San Francisco Bay area through Donner’s Pass on Interstate 80 promised to fill the mountainous roads with 3 to 5 feet of snow, making it extremely difficult to get to the event. Some participants endured a 10 hour drive which should only take at most 4 hours. Gladly, all our participants made it safely to the event.

With 48 teams competing, it was one of our lowest turnouts due to a shortened marketing timeframe and event location. We had to scramble to send our registration packet out since we decided to wait for a decision on ITTF’s new Olympic Team Format. We also felt Reno was centrally situation in the Pacific Northwest, however, the turnout from the San Francisco Bay area was less than expected. We surveyed some players and coaches that did not attend the event and reasons ranged from bad travel conditions during the winter months to Reno to inability to take time off from work or school since the event was not held in conjunction with a public holiday. We will make adjustments based on our survey results for the 2007 event so that we can maximize participation.

Even with the low turnout of teams, we had some very exciting matches. The new team format really makes the team competition interesting. It may be the fact that this format is new and that many players and coaches are not accustomed to creating the lineup for this type of competition. We saw some upset team ties that where if a different lineup were set, it could have made the difference. I feel that ITTF achieved its goal in balancing the team tie so that the team needs to be three deep strong to have a chance at winning the tie. I endorse the team format and I am very excited to see what it means for countries competing in the 2008 Olympic Games.

I want to further thank USA Table Tennis for giving us the opportunity to bring this event back for the membership. The Officiating crew was fantastic with over 25 officials present to help us launch the new ITTF format. They also were at times confused by the new team format, but after a couple rounds, they were able to assist teams in properly filling out the tie sheets. Most importantly, I want to applaud the participants who believed in the event and decided to attend, especially those that faced the tough travel conditions. Overall, the event was a successful launch for what will be a new mainstay in USA Table Tennis.