October 25th and 26th saw the top players from the US and Mexico come to Houston to vie for $10,000.00 in prize money and trophies. More than 150 players transformed the lobby of the Houston Table Tennis Center into a registration rush.

Players included US #1 Cheng Yinghua (Maryland) and #2 David Zhuang (New York). Also in competition were US world team members Razvan Cretu (New Orleans) and Eric Owens (Houston). Olympic Team member Todd Sweeris (Maryland) also was contending for the money. The aforementioned lobby provided relaxation, comraderie and more importantly a big screen TV!

The pro shop allowed players to stock up before the table wars. From a rare visit by the Schilhabs to the intensity put into his computer work by Torsten Pawlowski, the tourney was intense. Derek May, the top defender in the US gave the spectators a glimpse of what an attacker defender match up can be.

The match of the tournament turned out to be US Under 22 National Champion, Eric Owens vs US overall National Champion Cheng Yinghua. As happened in the US Open, Eric had Cheng down 2 games to 1. With a large crowd in the hundreds looking on, Cheng reprised his come from behind victory to take the match 3-2. These would be the only 2 games Cheng would lose the entire tournament.

As Cheng went through Niraj Oak for his show down with David Zhuang in the Open Finals, Cheng was unstoppable. Both Saturday and Sunday, Razvan Cretu tried twice to stop Cheng but to no avail. The North American AllStars event was all Cheng's as well. Todd finished off Eric to prevent a rematch of the previous day. Try as he could, David was unable to take a game in either finals. With three International Umpires in attendance, the tournament was also aided by several Club Umpires.

Amazingly, only one woman entered the Women's AllStar event so it had to be scratched. This is a real shame as there was quite a match for the Women's Open between Rashna Oak and Roxanna Kis (Subonj). Let's hope there are a lot more entries in next years event! Jessica Shen was quite dissapointed but still found a little time to play.

Florida sent a good contingent, but Josh Bernstein was the perfect representative.