April 10, 2024

(by Amy Karpinski)

The 2024 Butterfly Triangle Cup was held this past weekend (March 21-24, 2024) at Triangle Badminton & Table Tennis in Morrisville, NC.  It was a sold-out tournament with players from all levels and from as far away as Romania and Canada!

The tournament began with some ratings events on Thursday (March 21) and Friday (March 22).  The first two events of the tournament were the U1150 and the U1900.  Upon completion of the U1150 and U1900 events, the final two events of the day were held with was the U1500 and Thursday Open.  Thursday Open debuted the skills of MLTT star, Alexandru Cazacu who did not disappoint.  Thursday winners are as follows:

U1150

1^st Place              Richard Tan

2^nd Place             Sreysht Badrinarayanan

3^rd Place              Lauren Ye

U1900

1^st Place              Edson Yanaga

2^nd Place             Krishav Mallik

3^rd Place              Wayne Carney

U1500

1^st Place              Lauren Ye

2^nd Place             Benjamin Savage

3^rd Place              Akshat Mallik

Thursday Open

1^st Place              Alexandru Cazacu

2^nd Place             Rachid El Boubou

3^rd Place              Connor Lee

Friday had the popular over 1800 and U1800 events.  These events are historically popular events has it is a nice warmup for the Giant Round Robin main event on Saturday.  The competition was fierce and featured the tournament debut of another MLTT star: Ojo Onaolapo.  Upon completion of Friday’s play, the winners were:

U1800

1^st Place              Jaewoong Choi

2^nd Place             Yan-Bo Lin

3^rd Place              Shahram Shahabi

1800+

1^st Place              Alexandru Cazacu

2^nd Place             Ojo Onaolapo

3^rd Place              Connor Lee

Saturday brought rainy weather, but that did not hinder the 64 competitors that competed in the Giant Round Robin main event.  The preliminary rounds were played in the morning beginning at 9:00am.  The 64 players were snake seeded into groups of four.  Each group played and the winner of each group went into Division A, the 2^nd place player went to Division B, the 3^rd place player into Division C and the final player was placed in Division D.  There was a break for lunch and then each division was divided into two groups of eight.  At the end of the day, the top four players in each group of Division A, and the top two players of each group for Division B, C & D earned their spot in the single elimination playoffs on Sunday morning where all players were eligible for prize money and a Triangle Cup!

The winners of the main event on Sunday were:

Division A

Champion – Alexandru Cazacu

Finalist – Ojo Onaolapo

Semi-Finalist – Changbo Lu

Semi-Finalist – Rachid El Boubou

Quarterfinalist -Vikash Sahu

Quarterfinalist – Tiancheng Wang

Quarterfinalist – Connor Lee

Quarterfinalist – Kenny Ly

Division B

Champion – Daniel Gong

Finalist – Gauravdeep Aulakh

Semi-Finalist – Sarah Zhang

Semi-Finalist – Xiaotian Lu

Division C

Champion – Howard Phillips

Finalist – Seyed Saadat

Semi-Finalist – Yan Hu

Semi-Finalist – Tejas Avadhanula

Division D

Champion – Larry Bavly

Finalist – Hunter Hu

Semi-Finalist – Connie Yap

Semi-Finalist – Drew Pope

Triangle Badminton & Table Tennis was honored to host so much talent in our inaugural Triangle Cup event!  We look forward to hosting this event again next year and hope it will be bigger and better than ever!  Special thank you to our partners: Butterfly and the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance!  We couldn’t hold the event without your support.  Also, special thank you to William Englebreth who drove from Charlotte to be our National Referee for this event.

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