Hopes Cadets

Auckland Table Tennis Stadium was graced by 30 of New Zealand's most promising youngsters for the 2014 TTNZ Hopes and Cadets Open, on Sunday 16th March.

A number of prominent names from in and around New Zealand table tennis visited to see some outstanding talent on display.

Nathan Xu, formerly of Otago and now Auckland, and Jiayi Zhou from Canterbury were the winners of the Hopes events.  Both will be representing New Zealand at the Oceania Hopes tournament in Australia in April, where Jonjon Zhao previously won and gained selection for the World Hopes squad in 2013.  Good luck!!

The Cadets events were very hard fought with some surprise results showing just how competitive these players are.

In the boys event Victor Ma triumphed over Dean Shu - who had earlier defeated Jonjon Zhao.  Kevin Lin defeated newcomer Allen Zhao for third, after Allen had taken Victor to 5 in his semi-final.

In the girls event Lucy (Guiting) Liu triumphed over Ruofei Rao in the final, with her style proving hard to dominate.  Zhiying Cheng defeated Hui-Ling Vong for third.

In the Novice events for under 10's Kelly Wu again proved dominant in the girls.  Newcomers Aaron Yang, David Guo and Leo Mamedov battled away in the boys event, with Aaron defeating both Jason Sivilay and Jaiden Thammarongsa, but losing to David.

It was pleasing to see entrants coming from Wellington and Canterbury, in addition to those from Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Waitemata.

Full results here.

Photo gallery courtesy of Gina Liu