"Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead," encouraged Nelson Mandela. While 2020 has been a bumpy road, to say the least, the Westchester Table Tennis Club (WTTC) has nonetheless managed to achieve a most significant milestone. Yesterday's "September Little Open" marks the club's 100th open tournament. The newly expanded Pleasantville, New York table tennis hub has hosted the big money tournaments monthly since 2011. Action ground to a halt in March, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the 98th edition in February, when New Jersey's Sharon Alguetti lost in the finals to Canadian champion Jeremy Hazin. In August, play resumed in a very limited, pandemic-conscious format when the WTTC hosted the first four "Thursday Night Live: T2 Challenge" events in the innovative virtual tournament series. On August 6, Sharon Alguetti won his T2 Challenge match against national women's champion Juan Liu. This win would augur auspiciously for an august Alguetti August. At the following week's T2 Challenge on Aug. 13, Sharon's brother Adar beat US National Team member Amy Wang. Then, the WTTC officially resumed the "Open Era" with a drastically streamlined, four-event tourney dubbed the "Little Open." On August 30, Adar bested Kokou Fanny of Togo to claim the 99th Westchester open title. For those of you keeping score at home, that made this September's "Little Open" number 100. The open final on Sunday the 27th unsurprisingly featured an Alguetti; the only question would be which one? With defending champion Adar sitting this one out, the field was wide open for his brothers Sharon and Gal to fly the family banner. Unfortunately for Gal, his quest for parity in the sibling rivalry was dealt a blow by former Israeli national junior team member Mishel Levinski, now 25. With left-handed reverse pendulum serves reminiscent of Timo Boll, Levinski was too much for Gal in their semifinal clash. Sharon, on the other hand, cruised to the finals without dropping a game. In order to claim victory in the historic century mark, however, the 19-year-old Alguetti would need to decipher Levinski's deadly serves. The games reflected the similarly high level of play both competitors brought to the table, with Levinski's USATT rating of 2552 well within striking distance of Alguetti's 2631. The first game could have gone either way, but Sharon's consistent pressure from his forehand loop gave him the edge, 11-8. In game two, Levinski saved two game points, coming back to earn game point with the serve at 11-10. Despite his earlier success with low, short, hard-to-read serves, he decided to tee up this critical point for Alguetti's forehand. The results were predictably crushing, both for the plastic ball and for Levinski's momentum. Alguetti ran out the game, 13-11, for a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five match. In the final frame, tied 5-all, Alguetti closed the deciding game on a 6-0 run. For his efforts, Alguetti did much more than equal his brother Adar's $800 first place prize from August. He not only redeemed his long-lingering finals loss from February, but he also avenged his brother Gal's defeat to Mishel Levinski AND got to claim the historic 100th WTTC open championship. As the young, talented Sharon Alguetti prepares for the road ahead, this is one milestone he will certainly celebrate.

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