Team Korea A’s Park Hee Yeol, Cheon Young Chol, and Jang Jae Hoon dominated the team standings, earning four wins and no losses. Tinian A edged Korea B for second place based on ‘head-to-head results,’ which determined the tie-breaker.
As part of the program, players from all three teams were separated into two groups – A and B – in the team competition.
Korea A won 3-0 against Saipan B’s Steven Lim, Mr. Kim, and Hisamitsu Hamamoto before beating Tinian A. They secured the team event’s gold trophy with two more victories against Saipan A and Tinian B.
Completing the team competition’s bottom three groups were Saipan A’s Budhi Gurung, T.W. Park, Simon Li, and Mrs. Noh, Tinian B’s Charlie Cheng, Su Yong Dong, and Liang Wei Bin, and Saipan B’s Lim, Mr. Kim, Mr. Ahn, and Hamamoto.
Korea’s Yeol and Chol dominated again in the tournament’s doubles round, beating teammates Jang Jae Hoon and Ahn Byung Gap for first place.
“The doubles competition format was a single elimination knock-out format, with seeding used to rank the pairs,” noted Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association’s Steve Lim in an email.
The Yeol-Chol duo worked their way through T.W. Park and Mrs. Noh in the quarterfinals, scoring 11-8, 11-13, 9-11, 11-4, and 11-6. They cruised through the semis, beating fellow Korean players Choi In Kyu and Ha Jung Ho.
With no players from Saipan or Tinian progressing to the singles event’s semifinals, rankings were decided on “individual performances [and] statistics in the team competition” according to Lim.
Korea A’s Park Hee Yeol, Cheon Young Chol, and Jang Jae Hoon later took the spotlight after receiving awards for ‘best individual performance.’ Team Korea previously won trophies in last March’s tournament at Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino.
