JOOLA USA

John Leach

I had a short break following Junior/Men’s national team trials at the end of February. After a few days back in my hometown of Erie, Colorado I headed out for Danny Seemilller’s St. Joseph Valley Open in South Bend, Indiana. St. Joe has always been a really good tournament every year I have been there; this was my 7^th time, and it was no exception. A lot of players came to compete in the Open event: Mark Hazinski, Sasa Drinic, Ludovic Gombos, and of course Danny Seemiller himself. However, there was also a large troop of Canadian players from national National Men’s, Junior, and Cadet teams who came to play as well. I had a place to stay for the week thanks to the hospitality of the Cochran family from the South Bend club, and my fellow Junior Teammate Joey Cochran and I took 3^rd place in the Open doubles event later in the tournament. I was also happy with my singles play as I took 1^st in the U-2400 ratings event as well as 1^st in the Junior event. After the tournament I spent the next few days in South Bend before I headed back to Colorado for a few days.

  Shortly after I got back, I flew to Florida for a 3 day series of exhibitions that Nan and I put on at the CTIA wireless conference in Orlando. It was a lot of fun to spend some time backing away from the table and hitting less serious shots after the intensity of the last couple of months, and it’s always neat when you have a crowd that is as interested in participating as much as ours was. It was also nice to have a break from all the cold mountain weather; the warm weather in Florida came as a welcome change! After we finished the exhibitions I started preparing for my last journey in my recent series of competitions; a 2 tournament trip consisting of the NA Championships, followed by a short training camp, and ending with Canada’s World Junior Circuit event.

I flew out to Montreal in the evening 2 days before the tournament and spent most of the day before the competition training and playing a few matches with the US Junior and Cadet team members who flew in that day. The first day of the competition consisted of the Cadet singles event as well as the Junior qualification rounds, although there was a friendship match between Canada and the US Juniors later that night. The match was certainly pretty friendly, which makes sense since we would all be playing against each other the next morning, when it truly mattered, in Junior Singles Championships. When we did play the final Junior Round Robin stage, I was in a group with Canada’s #2 Junior – Andre Ho, My Teammate Joey Cochran, and Brian Michaud, who is also on the Canadian Junior Team. All of my matches were tough, but I advanced after a close loss to Andre in the fifth game.  In the semifinals I was paired against Shen Qiang; I played pretty well, but Shen is definitely one of North America’s best and I lost the match 4-1, so I ended up taking the Bronze medal home. I was also seeded in the Men’s singles event with Bence Csaba, Xavier Therien, and (surprise, surprise) Shen Qiang. I lost to both Shen and Xavier, and once I had a 2-0 lead on Bence, he decided he would rather concede the match than bother finishing. Hooray for me, I guess.

After the NA Championships, there was a short (but good) training camp preceding the actual WJC (World Junior Circuit) tournament. Some of countries came for the entire week (India, Columbia, Egypt, Qatar) and more came right before the tournament began, such as England and Belgium. We have a great group of kids on the US teams this year; we’ve known each other for a long time and work together as a unit. (I felt it was a particularly good trip for the Junior Boy’s team; we had no Junior Team coach with us, so we had to organize ourselves and coach each other accordingly.) Seriously, I am lucky to have such a great clan to travel with.  I also know a lot of the players from the other countries, so it was really cool to train and hang out with them all again.

 As far as the tournament is concerned, I thought it was a valuable experience; the US Boys got to the quarter finals in the teams competition, where we lost to England. Not a bad way to finish since their top player, Paul Drinkhall, won the Junior’s event and their #2 team member, JOOLA player Gavin Evans, won the Cadet singles. I thought the rest of the US team played well too (congrats to Judy Hugh for getting the Bronze in Girl’s Singles!) In my Junior draw, I had Drinkhall in my group, as well as Andre Ho, and one of India’s players. I had a decisive win over Andre this time, but still didn’t make it out of my group after coming out in the wrong slot of a 3-way tie. Still, it was a lot of fun and I plan on using the experiences over the last few months to help me prepare for my upcoming pursuits in this sport.

I have a break in travel for a while now; my next trip on the US team will be in June for a training camp before the US Open, and I am already working on some more training opportunities before then. Until then, though, I plan on continuing a training regimen here in Colorado, especially emphasizing physical training as a way to take advantage of the high altitude. Thanks for reading, and best wishes to you.

--John