World Veterans Tour – Fort Lauderdale: Highlights

(by Steve Hopkins/Photo by ITTF)

For Lauderdale was the most recent stop for the World Veterans Tour.  The tournament featured 24 events, age rated events including singles, doubles, and mixed doubles.  The youngest veteran age band is Over 40 and the most senior of the veteran events is the 80+ event.

American players had solid results throughout the tournament.  USA’s Lily Yip teamed with Canada’s Hui Huang to win the Women’s Over 40 event.  Lily also won the Women’s Singles Over 50 event.  The Men’s Over 50 event has an all-AMERICAN Final with Igor Shulkin winning and Robert Shahnazari finishing second.In Mixed Doubles Over 50 it was USA’s Igor Shulkin teaming with Canada’s Hui Huang for the title.  Canada’s Zhicong Chen won the Men’s Singles Over 60 over USA’s Santos Shih in a tight 3-2 match.  In Women’s Over 60 singles, USA’s Patricia Benitez overcame USA’s Gloria Cadavid 3-2.  The USA team of Santos Shih and Scott Preiss won the Men’s Doubles Over 60.  USA’s Yuxiang Li dominated the Men’s Over 65 event, winning every match (including the Final) 3-0.  Yuxiang Li teamed with USA’s Bin Chu to take the Men’s Doubles Over 65 title.  The USA team of Changping Duan and Xiaoying Liu won the Mixed Doubles Over 65 event.

Men’s Singles Over 70 was an All-American Semifinals with Dell Sweeris defeating Jeffrey Swersky in the Final – and with David Sakai finishing third and Dana Hanson finishing fourth.  Yilin Chen of China won the Women’s Over 70 event, but three Americans were on her heels with Si Cheong finishing second, Connie Sweeris finishing third, and Sanae Hirschler finishing fourth.  USA’s David Sakai and Dell Sweeris won the Men’s Doubles Over 70.  It was Team Sweeris over Team Sakai in the Mixed Doubles Over 70 as the US husband-wife team of Dell and Connie Sweeris overcame the husband-wife team of David and Donna Sakai. Dmitry Davydenko of Russia defeated USA’s Valeriy Goncharov in the Men’s Singles Over 75 final.  The Over 75 Singles finalists teamed up to win the Over 75 Doubles event.  In Men’s Singles Over 80, it was Canada’s WanFang Zhou over USA’s Bowie Martin.

In the 40-59 Women’s Singles Event, it was Lily Yip over Canada’s Hui Huang.  In the Women’s Singles 60-80+ Event, it was USA’s Connie Sweeris over USA’s Xiaoying Liu.  In the Men’s 60-80+ Event it was USA’s Yuxiang Li over USA’s Bin Chu.

The next Veterans Tour Event will be in Doha, Qatar in November, and the final Tour event this year will be in Cardiff in December.

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