1996 Decatur (Alabama) Open Results The 5th annual Decatur Open was held September 7 at the Aquadome in Decatur, AL. Once again we had a very successful tournament with few problems. Tournament directors Walt Chenault and Mike Wetzel did an excellent job obtaining sponsors and running the event. Pepsi-Cola, The Decatur Daily and Audio-Visual Specialists provided lunch, T-shirts (first 50 entrants) and door prizes. Jimmy Smith Jewelers once again provided a table tennis gold and pearl piece, this time in the form of a charm. TSP-Robbins Sport provided balls and door prizes. City of Decatur Parks and Recreation provided the facility and a number of area merchants provided door prizes or other freebies: JoCo Table Tennis, The Trophy Place, Decatur Convention and Visitors Bureau, Lang's Sporting Goods of Decatur, Family Mart Golf Shores, and area banks. Days Inn was the tournament hotel and put us up on the marquee and comped one room. Sponsors are out there even for small tournaments. We thank them. We actually played a field of 72, even though 65 was our target cut off. We accommodated the others by giving "byes" in the morning round to the top seven seeds: TJ Beebe (Atlanta), David Williams (Decatur, GA), Shuja Jafar (New Albany, KY), Mark Dubin (Roswell, GA), Keith LaFrance (Montgomery), Don Brazzell (Louisville, KY), and Donny Flowers (Memphis, TN). Everyone else was seeded into 13 groups of 5 players such that the 8th player at the tournament had the 72nd seed in his group, etc. This was the strongest field ever for the Decatur Open, or any Alabama tournament in history. This may have been due to a carryover effect from the Olympics, or a reflection of the increased prize money (1st through 4th doubled from last year to 200, 100, 50 and 50 dollars). Players advanced into one of 5 groups for the afternoon round robins (after pizza!): Championship (where the top 7 seeds were already waiting), A's, B's, C's and D's. The Championship went largely as expected, except that the 1994 champion George Cooper upset Shuja Jafar and Richard McAffee (Atlanta, GA). Cooper was playing with yet another odd combination racket of long pips and inverted. Cooper won in '94 with Feint long pips on both sides. Donny Flowers fell to Beebe. Flowers, the 1993 and 1995 champion complained that he was about $50 out of his range. LaFrance echoed that sentiment, losing to Dubin. Don Brazzell lost to the smooth and athletic attack of David Williams, to round out the seeded finishes. Dubin and Beebe advanced to one semi-final, Cooper and Williams to the other. Dubin and Beebe had the most watched match of the day with a number of long rallies. Beebe ended up on top. Cooper befuddled yet another top competitor, knocking out Williams. In the final Cooper had Beebe talking to himself about the odd shots coming back but apparently he said the right things. The 14 year old Georgia state champion, T.J. Beebe, was this year's winner. Top local finishers were Ralph Kissel (Huntsville) and Chip Patton (Madison) each with one win in the Championship round. Kissel defeated Patton and Patton defeated Jay Sourinthone (Nashville, TN), the 1996 Huntsville Winter Open winner. 1992's Decatur Open Winner, Ronald Pickett (Memphis, TN) was the only past champion not present. In the A division Justin Davis (Decatur, AL) defeated Ernesto Kawamoto (Huntsville). Dr. Ronald Peters (Brewton) and Mark Abrams (Atlanta) were semi-finalists. Abrams, rated 1518 at the beginning of the day, had some big wins, including upsetting 1821 Noi Sourinthone (Nashville), in the morning round to make the A's. Fred Austin (Jonesboro, GA) took the B's over Tracy O'Neal (Chattanooga, TN). Semi-finalists were Danny Bullock (Gadsden) and Rusty Nunnally (Birmingham). In the C's Ross Brown (Atlanta) topped Errol Thomas of Chattanooga with Robert McNeal (Fairfield) and Colen Ellis (Gadsden) as semi-finalists. Class D saw Cantaseng Sivilay (Nashville), an unrated player, defeat Jamil Stallings also of Nashville. Defeated in the semi's were Gary Wood (Birmingham) and Steven Ross (Atlanta). An Under 3700 single elimination event returned all entry fees to the participants: 2/3 to 1st, 1/3 to 2nd. 16 teams competed at $6 per team, paying $64 to the first place team of Patton/Kawamoto and $32 to second place Shoaib Moosa (Mobile) and Peters. Patton/Kawamoto had tough wins over McAffee/Austin and Shaun Stallings/Saymek Sourinthone (both Nashville, TN) before meeting Moosa/Peters for a close 3 game final. Special thanks to Justin Davis and Jason and Deidre Denton of Trinity, AL for organizing the doubles event, which took place mostly during the lunch break. Davis and Jason Denton were victims of the Moosa/Peters finalist team. Additional thanks go to HTTC club member Jerrold Moske for his day long help running the tournament and to Ed Watts (Huntsville), Joe Mitchell (Jacksonville, FL) and anyone else who helped move tables, etc. -- Chip Patton