Schaumburg Chinese New Year Open 2006

SCHAUMBURG CHINESE NEW YEAR OPEN 2006

'DANNY STILL GOT IT'

By John Oh / [email protected]

PROLOG

It was pretty exciting to hear many good players were coming to play at the Schaumburg Chinese New Year tournament on Feb 11, 2006, Saturday. When I saw that one of our regular club favorites, Reggie Dulaca, currently rated at mid 2100, was seeded second from the bottom of the 8 round robbins in the open, I could tell the level of competition about to take place here was going to be higher than normal. But, what really got my attention was the fact that one of the players signed up for the event was Danny Seemiller, one of the original greatest USA players, winner of multi-time national championships with a unique grip that bears his name. I��ve first heard of and seen him over a decade ago when I began to get into the sport of Table Tennis and always had a great respect for his accomplishments. After my over a decade of absence from the world of Table Tennis, coming back to it just a few months ago, I was impressed to find the level of competition that he is still carrying on at over 50 years of age, a cool mid 2400 rating.

In the past few recent tournaments that I witnessed at Schaumburg club, IL, the final of the open was anything but exciting, as the 21- 2200 level local favorites were routinely crushed by a mid 2500 player, come from Italy, still trying to learn English, Sasa Drinsic, or a mid 2300 player, come from Poland, again still trying to learn English, Lukasz Fita. It��s not the fact that they are not native American players that is not exciting, but the fact that the competition is just not there when the skill level of players is clearly far apart.  Furthermore, I��ve even heard of a situation at a nearby neighbor club Glenview tournament where the dark side master of long pips, the ultimate hacker Roman soldier style player, finally barely over 2400 rating, Dickie Fleisher, decided not to play the final match against Sasa for whatever reason. I suppose many players live and die by the ratings or wins. But it just seems to us lowly wannabes who crowd the tournament arenas, this kind of behavior is just not too respectable. At least Lukasz will face and fight against Sasa when they both show up, and by the way, they have both signed up for this event.

The excitement is definitely in the air as indigenous, arguably highly respected, dedicated Table-Tennis-is-my-life national coach, Mark Nordby is also showing up for the event, with his growing army of junior disciples who will be carrying on the torch in the future, perhaps giving fellow coach Danny some moral support.

If all goes as it should, Danny and Sasa will be in the final, and no matter what happens we know we are going to see some great points, since their skill level is close enough even though Sasa has an upper hand with a whopping 120 points above Danny.

MAIN EVENT

So, The Open proceeds at around 5:00 pm as scheduled without a hitch, under the direction of always-dependable tournament director, one of our local icons, upper 2100 rated, Spensor Lam, who decided not to participate in order to run the event, and truly American cultured, Chinese looking certified referee, Kagan. A small crowd of highly anticipated wanna-play-like-that spectators took their ringside seats and began watching every move of the players.

Soon, the single eliminations are underway and we see our underdog Reggie fighting Lukasz taking one game in a storm after a long drawn out rally that went to his favor. But, Lukasz regroups himself and outplays Reggie for the rest of the match to come out ahead, only to fall in the next round to the hands of master American style Danny who basically is doing his deed on his path to the final. Lukasz was not able to put any significant dent to the founder of the unique Danny Seemiller style.

We also see the 12 year old, once almost 2300 rated, who began playing since 8 years of age, America��s Table Tennis prodigy, AJ Brewer in action against Sasa, but the rating difference is just too much for the young master at this time, although there were some brilliant points executed by the upper coming star. I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of him in the future. Then, we see our fearless coach Mark Nordby playing some good intelligent shots scoring occasionally against top seeded Sasa, but it is too difficult of a task for our cult hero. During the game, though, he utters his unique brand of off the wall comment that turned out to be the phrase of this memorable event when he missed both of Sasa��s serves in a row – ��oh, ....but, it IS harder than it looks!��. Yes, we share the sentiment. It cracked up the crowd easing the tension in the air.

And the final match commences. It was to be 4 out of 7, and the anxiously waiting crowd is all primed and ready for this amazing feat of skills to be unveiled live.

First game begins and Sasa is keeping a small lead progressing to the end as Danny fighting tenaciously to get back into the game evens at 9 all. We begin to appreciate the fine points of Danny��s unique style as he so accurately and smartly mixes up the frontal blocks and both wing loops corner to corner, long and short. In the beginning I could see he was mixing his anti for return of serves and blocks for a couple of shots, but Sasa didn��t seem to have any problem ripping them. Sasa was playing well executed loops both wings often outplaying Danny in long rallies, and serving at nine all, he seemed confident at continuing this strategy and goes out at 11 to 9.

In the second game, Danny starts off with a small lead in the beginning and keeps it to 10 - 7. Momentarily, it looks as though this game will go his way, but we all know the game is not finished until the final point is played. Sasa confidently and carefully fights back and deuces at 10 all, and an extended deuce game begins. Having watched many international professional matches, I instinctively recognize that this deuce game could be the most important of the match. In other words, it would be extremely difficult for Danny to have any chance to win if he loses this one as an underdog, but if he wins there could be a chance. They fight tooth and nail for each point until finally Danny prevails at the end, 15 - 13. After this exciting duo, one of the juniors referring Danny as ��the coach�� whispers to me, ��Coach said ��Now, we have a match!���� I was still skeptical. After all, Sasa is over 100 points above Danny, and someone told me he hasn��t lost to Danny for a long time.

Sasa ends the closely contested third game at 11 – 9, much in the same fashion as the first game, with Danny making every attempt to even the score from a small deficit but without success, when it came down to the end. For every shot made, the crowd is appreciating one of the finest crafted skills we all admire - loops, blocks, smashes, return of netted balls and all other amazing things they do we wish we could.

Danny comes back and wins the fourth game evening the score at 2 - 2, and Sasa wins another one after that to go up 3-2. During these games, incredible exchange of shots went back and forth, and at one point Sasa made an incredible return from the side of the table (the ball was bouncing out and dropping to the side because it hit the edge) that landed on Danny��s side of the table without going over the net, and bounced twice quickly before Danny could even touch it.

THE DRAMA

Then here happens one of the most dramatic events of the match. This is the kind of things that we love about Table Tennis – the drama.

Down 2 – 5 in the game that he could not afford to lose, Danny calls time out and has a brief get together with Mark Nordby. It looks as though this game could be all over for Danny pretty soon at this point. However, after the time out the game ensues and in what seems to be a few short moments, we find Danny up 6 – 5. Sasa begins to show signs of distress and frustration, talking to himself. Something is clearly not going his way. Few more exchanges of shots, and Danny wins every point. At this time, I realize Sasa��s pain. Danny��s fast blocking of shots coming back so quickly for every shot is confining him, restraining him from opening up to execute his powerful loops. Sasa not being to open up his power looping game, Danny dominates the fast exchanges – the unique advantage of his style, fast blocking to any corner off the bounce. I can see Danny is pumped up, concentrated, poised and controlling the game, while Sasa is frustrated, making errors. Danny��s blowout from 2 - 5 down at a critical time after the time out ends the game quickly at 11 – 5. Danny has scored incredible 9 points in a row. We were all awestruck. Something incredible has just happened in front of our eyes. We knew we were in for a treat, but this is just too extreme.

At 3 – 3, the match goes into the final deciding game. Before we can blink an eye, Danny is up 3 – 0. He has extended his streak from 9 to 12. On Sasa ! Table Tennis, a human sport, is simply an amazing sport. This is just too dramatic, and we were all really enjoying every moment of it. Distressed Sasa calls a time out, walks over and talks to people at his camp. This match is just too exciting. The crowd is totally ecstatic, whispering amongst themselves. Sasa comes back and the game continues. Both players fight for each point, as neither of them can afford any mistakes now. It always amuses me when I find that every level of this sport, the human factor is quite similar. Both players were exchanging safe, timid shots just like any of us would in a similar situation. It is difficult to take the chance, be brave and bold in such a situation. Maybe that is the challenge that we keep on coming back for. Nevertheless, it is a challenge every time. I could only imagine how the pros deal with it. It is a subject for another article.

Danny keeps a small lead and Sasa keeps evening the score. At 8 – 8, Sasa misses a loop on Danny��s serve and yells out a cry irritated, as he touches his crotch area. ��The Balls!, ��don��t have the Balls..��, and imitates his cowardly executed missed loop. I can feel his agony, as I am sure many of us have felt the same at one time or another. On the other hand, Danny is still focused and concentrating, still appear to be pumped. Sasa wills his way to the deuce, but does not fully recover from the continuing fearful mode of operation and pressure, weakly executing shots and loses the game at the deuce.

Danny cries out a loud yell with his fist swinging and pumping to the air. Crowd goes wild. Fans go to him and congratulate him on his fine performance. I high five him saying, �� Still got it!��. Danny replies smiling, �� Still got it at 51.��

EPILOG

It was one of the most memorable finals of all of Shaumburg tournament��s finals to date. I know that a lot of players are not spectators, and not really interested in the glory of other people. But, I am totally into everything, everything about Table Tennis. I am sure that some of us share this sentiment. I wish more of us did. Table Tennis is simply awesome, with all of its ups and downs.

Shortly after the match, I ask Danny, �� So, what happened at the time out? From 2 – 5 to 11 –5 ? Something must have happened. What did you do that was different?�� Danny replies, �� Oh, I just decided to strengthen everything, the block, the loop, everything. Play everything more aggressively.�� I said, ��You were playing faster shots to keep him at bay, not letting him to open up, and that was a good strategy.�� He said, ��Yea, I felt I had control. I had 9 point run to finish that game, and I took the first 3 points in the next game, you know. So, I knew I could win. And, in the end, the 2 shots he missed is because he was scared.�� In the midst of questions from the admirers, he explains, �� I didn��t use the anti at all for the whole match except for couple shots in the beginning because he likes it, and it would be confusing for me to mix the defense with the offense.��

I saw Sasa walking over to Danny as things began to die down, perhaps congratulating him. I shook hands with Sasa as he was leaving, said, �� Thanks for coming by.��

As I was watching Danny perform his incredible shots time and time again with excellent precision, I was thinking to myself about how Seemille Jr. would feel. I thought, ��Isn��t he the kind of dad any son would love to have?�� Imagine having a dad like that! Personally, it��s really good to see that the Jr. is playing the same style. We don��t really know the potential this style holds, because not enough people give it a try, and it is the true American style. Personally, I think Danny is one of the true hidden great American heroes and a living legend. I don��t know him but I found him to be down to earth, personable, dedicated, and still available to us mere mortals, unlike some high level players with chips on their shoulders. I think the low exposure of this sport, making him a hidden hero makes him that much more great and admirable.

All in all, it was a great tournament and the final match was a great exhibition of the awesome sport that Table Tennis is. The small crowd of spectators lucky enough to be there was surely treated with an inspiring performance not too common in this part of the world.