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Active Fall Season for Canadian U15 Teams
Last Update: December 10, 2013
 
The Canadian Cadet Girls team looks back at an active fall season. After qualifying two girls onto Team North America for the World Cadet Challenge in Otocec, Slovenia - the de facto U15 World Championships - the Canadian qualifiers Jiabao Liu (ON) and Cherry Zheng (BC) used the occasion to gain international experience and to collect World Ranking points: fifth place finish in the team competition, a 14th place finish for Cherry Zheng and a 19th place finish for Jiabao Liu were the highlights of the competition.

Jiabao Liu traveled on to Hungary to join fellow Canadians Jane Yan (BC) and Justina Yeung (ON) in the Hungarian Open. Guided by Canada's newest addition to the National Coaches team - Liu Yongjiang - the girls team upset a number of higher ranked European teams but fell short in their quest for a medal.

Yeung, Liu, Yan and Natasha Carr-Harris (BC) teamed up for the US open Team Championships in Washington, DC where they won the U18 Junior Girls competition.

The international outings paid off with the team of Cherry Zheng, Jiabao Liu, Justina Yeung and Jane Yan gaining a whopping 511 World Ranking spots between them: between August and December, Cherry Zheng moved up 170 places, Jiabao Liu gained 66 places; 14-year old Justina Yeung moved up an impressive 140 ranks, while Jane Yan - improved by 135 ranks.

On the boys side Alex Moran (ON) and Michael Luo (BC) qualified for Team North America for Slovenia. While the team also finished 5th in the competition, Michael Luo showed outstanding form in the team event. In the Singles, Alex Moran missed a top-eight finish by a hair, he lost to Slovenia's Darko Jorgic, one of Europe's top U15 players by the slimmest of margins, 3-4. Moran ended up finishing 16th. Michael Luo ended up 18th.

The results of the Canadian cadet boys are reflected in their improvement on the ITTF World Ranking list: Michael Luo moved up 200 ranks between August and December, while Alex Moran moved up by 10 places.