(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
1st Place Richard Tan
2nd Place Sreysht Badrinarayanan
3rd Place Lauren Ye
U1900
1st Place Edson Yanaga
2nd Place Krishav Mallik
3rd Place Wayne Carney
U1500
1st Place Lauren Ye
2nd Place Benjamin Savage
3rd Place Akshat Mallik
Thursday Open
1st Place Alexandru Cazacu
2nd Place Rachid El Boubou
3rd 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
1st Place Jaewoong Choi
2nd Place Yan-Bo Lin
3rd Place Shahram Shahabi
1800+
1st Place Alexandru Cazacu
2nd Place Ojo Onaolapo
3rd 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 2nd place player went to Division B, the 3rd 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.
Stay “In The Loop” with Butterfly professional table tennis equipment, table tennis news, table tennis technology, tournament results, and We Are Butterfly players, coaches, clubs and more
