(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT)
Nikhil Kumar will anchor TeamUSA after dominating the 2024 US World Championship Team Trials. Kumar was seeded third overall, but won his Group 7-0 including a tight 4-3 upset win over Jishan Liang. Sid Naresh won the other group by winning all six matches, including an upset over his group’s top seed Xiang Jing Zhang.
In the second stage, the top 8 players faced off with Nikhil Kumar again running the table – winning all seven matches. Nandan Naresh (who had finished third in his Stage 1 group) managed to finish second overall with a 5-2 record. Sid Naresh also finished 5-2, but was third overall (due to the head to head loss to his brother). The fourth position went to Jishan Liang, who finished 4-3. Kai Zhang will be the fifth player, and the top alternate for the squad will be Mishel Levinski (who was one of the team members for the last World Championships).
The Women’s results were Tiffany Ke (who finished 6-1), Jessica Reyes-Lai (who finished 5-2), Kayla Goodwin (who finished 4-3), and Emily Tan (who finished 4-3). Neither Lily Zhang nor Amy Wang will compete this year, so there will be a different look for the American team. The team will be Ke, Reyes-Lai, Goodwin, Tan, and Sarah Jalli (who finished fifth). Amber Liu will be the first alternate.
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