CONCORD AT FREMONT-SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2007

By League Members

Concord is coming off a win over San Francisco a couple hours back and is going to get a default win over Palo Alto tomorrow.  If they win this match, that would give them three wins for the weekend....not bad for two days of work!  Trevor Runyan played in the earlier match against San Francisco but now is at the Palo Alto junior training and Aaron Castillo takes Runyan's place in the lineup for Concord.  Fremont ace Shashin Shodhan is not playing this match as he does not want the carpet floor to possibly cause any adverse side-effects on his knee while moving as it is not at 100%.  This is the main reason he is not playing the Oakland tournament tomorrow morning as well. 

Aaron Castillo (Concord) vs Narasimham Iyer (Fremont)

This is Castillo's league singles debut as we all know him now as the graphics and video guru for the league.  He played a doubles match earlier in the season at Mountain View.  Iyer proves himself to be a level above Castillo and is killing Castillo's serves with his backhand drives and forehand loops.  The rallies are short as Iyer wins this one comfortably 3-0.

Philip Lim (Concord) vs Ankur Patel (Fremont)

Lim starts off the match by flip-killing Patel's serves.  Patel does not have much experience against short pips and he changes the strategy for the rest of the match.  He ends up on the losing end of this match but loses the second and third games narrowly at 12-10 and 11-8.  After the first game, Patel started serving more long and started playing into the corners.  The team match is now tied 1-1.

Mike Dewynter (Concord) vs Nash Darukhanawalla (Fremont)

Darukhanawalla has a 9-year old daughter Jenny who plays table-tennis who often questions his Dad as to why he has the worst record in the league and has not won a singles match yet.  Darukhanawalla hopes to break-through in this league match but Mike Dewynter will be a major obstacle.  Dewynter leads the opener 9-7 but Darukhanawalla wins 12-10.  Now Darukhanawalla is two games away from his daughter's hopes.  He opens the second with a 6-3 lead and plays Dewynter's wide backhand.  However, Darukhanawalla starts making mistakes at that point and ends up losing 11-9.  Darukhanawalla then wins 16 of the next 19 point points as a ball to the wide backhand is followed up by a strong forehand topspin.  He ends up cruising to a 3-1 win.  Now, Darukhanawalla can happily tell his daughter that he won a match!

Philip Lim/Aaron Castillo (Concord) vs Ankur Patel/Nash Darukhanawalla (Fremont)

Castillo has trouble keeping his serves short in the opener which helps Fremont win the first game.  Patel and Darukhanawalla play consistently in the second game so Fremont is now up 2-0 in this best of five doubles match.  Lim starts taking control in the third and fourth games with a barrage of forehand hit and flip winners.  However, Fremont wins the fifth and Fremont now leads 3-1 and is one win away from their second win of the season.

Philip Lim (Concord) vs Narasimham Iyer (Fremont)

Iyer got only 15 points in the entire match when the two players played against each other in the league match at Concord.  This match is a lot more interesting as Iyer plays much better.  After the first two games and halfway through the third game, Iyer starts playing mainly cross-court to angle out Lim who is a one-sided pips-out penholder.  Iyer is playing great and Lim is making more mistakes than in their match at Concord.  Lim is up 10-4 in the third only to see Iyer get to 10-9 before winning 11-9.  Iyer wins the fourth game 11-3 which could possibly be the best game he has played in competition since his move to the US as Lim is rated about 500 points higher than Iyer.  Iyer leads 5-2 at the switch in the decider but loses 11-9 due to poor serve returns against Lim's topspin serves.  Fremont is two points from having a 4-1 win for their second win of the season.  The match goes on....

Mike Dewynter (Concord) vs Ankur Patel (Fremont)

Patel has had problems against long pips but with more experience against it now, it no longer bothers him as he just defeated a 1950 long pips player in the USATT league.  This is his first experience playing anti as Dewynter uses anti on his backhand side and tries to cover most of the table with his backhand.  Patel's inexperience with anti shows as he is missing many more loops than normal, especially when he is trying to hit slow, spinny loops.  After a deuce first game win, Dewynter wins the next two games easily.  The team match is tied up 3-3.

Aaron Castillo (Concord) vs Nash Darukhanawalla (Fremont)

This is a league match of firsts for Castillo and Darukhanawalla.  Castillo played his first singles match of the league season in this team match and Darukhanawalla won his first singles match of the league season an hour back.  Castillo did not feel very comfortable at the beginning of this match because of his earlier pummeling by Iyer.  As a result, Castillo plays tentatively to open the match.  Darukhanawalla loops with lots of power on his forehand which can be intimidating to serve against.  However, Darukhanawalla's confidence in this match diminishes as he has lots of trouble against Castillo's spin serves.  Castillo gains confidence with his service winners and the confidence remains with him for the rest of the match.  Darukhanawalla's power and Castillo's spin both overwhelmed the other but Castillo's higher consistency prevails to give Concord the win.

When most would look at the season rosters, most would pick Oakland and Concord as the top two teams and the regular season ends with Oakland on top of the standings with Concord right behind.  Concord is 7-3 with the default win tomorrow against Palo Alto.  They end the season with 5 consecutive wins.