Alexander Moran Guides Canada to Second Stage, Successful Day for Leading Teams
Courtesy of ITTF

May 11, 2014 – First place, as predicted, was the outcome for the leading outfits in the initial stage of the Junior Boys’ Team event on the first day of play, Monday May 11th, at the Butterfly 2015 Canadian Junior and Cadet Open in Markham, Toronto.

Three groups, the United States ‘A’, the top seeds, with Kanak Jha and Jack Wang on duty duly finished in first place in their group as did the United States ‘B’ Team combination of Krishnateja Avvari and Victor Liu, the second seeds.

At no stage was either outfit troubled.

Comfortable Wins
Kanak Jha and Jack Wang recorded three matches to nil wins against Guyana represented Jeremey Singh and Kyle Edghill, before posting the same margin of victory in opposition to the Canada ‘C’ outfit comprising Matthew Lehmann and James Yu.

Likewise it was three-nil wins for Krishnateja Avvari and James Yu in each of the first stage contests.

They beat the United States ‘D’ team duo of Adar Alguetti and Patrick Pei before overcoming the Canada ‘B’ pairing of Guo Moxi and Bryan Ho.

Second Places
Matthew Lehmann and James Yu alongside Moxi Guo and Bryan Ho secured second places and thus advanced to the second stage.

Testing Duel
Comfortable wins for the top two seeds, for the third seeds, Canada ‘A’ represented by Alexander Moran and Filip Ilijevski, life was more testing.

They beat colleagues Zhang Wenbin and Frederik Dufresne, representing Canada ‘B’ by three matches to nil, before needing the full five match to overcome the United States ‘C’ Team formed by Kunal Chodri and Theodore Tran.

Mainstay
Mainstay of the success was Alexander Moran; he beat Kunal Chodri in the second match of the engagement (11-5, 11-7, 11-7) before accounting for Theodore Tran in the vital fifth and concluding contest (11-6, 10-12, 11-7, 11-4).

The one further success came from Filip Ilijevski in opposition to Kunal Chodri in the fourth match of the fixture (12-10, 9-11, 11-5, 11-8); for the United States Theodore Tran overcame Filip Ilijevski in the opening match of the contest (11-8, 7-11, 11-8, 10-12, 11-7), while Kunal Chodri and Theodore Tran combined to win the doubles (9-11, 11-4, 11-8, 12-10).

Mental Factor
“Against Theodore, I was not so mentally strong, especially at the start of the match; I think against him in the past it’s been about 50:50 between us”, said Alexander Moran. “When I played Kunal Chodri I felt strong mentally, I have a good record against him.”

A satisfied Theodore Tran, Filip Ilijevski had somewhat mixed feelings.

“I played how Theodore wanted me to play”, explained Filip Ilejevski. “However, when I played Kunal I felt physically strong and my first attack was good.”

Kunal Chodri and Theodore Tran duly finished in second place in the group; as with Alexander Moran and Filip Ilijevski they overcame the combination of Canada’s Jack Chang and Colombia’s Carlos Vergara by three matches to nil.

Cadet Boys’ Team Event
Meanwhile, in the Cadet Boys’ Team event where there were four groups in the initial stage with the outfits finishing in first and second places advancing to the main draw, the United States emerged the dominant force.

It was top spot for the United States ‘A’ (Gal Alguetti, Sharon Alguetti) and the United States ‘C’ (Felix Gao, Derek Nie) as it was for the United States ‘D’ (Jonathan Li, Nicholas Tio) and the United States ‘E’ (Jordan Wong, Steven Gong).

Second places went to Canada ‘A’ (Jeremy Hazin, Alexander Bu), Canada ‘B’ (Edward Ly, Jason Liu), United States ‘B’ (Michael Minh Tran, Nikhil Kumar) and Canada ‘C’ (Boris Kalev, Luc Sicard).

Play Concludes
Play in both the Junior Boys’ Team and the Cadet Boys’ Team event concludes on Tuesday May 12th.