College Table Tennis Enjoys Growth Spurt
An NCTTA Feature - April 2011

By Andy Kanengiser
NCTTA Media Relations Chair

College table tennis is booming in North America. Trends show that’s the case and so does the stepped up competition at the 2011 National Championships in Minnesota.

Rest your paddles for a moment, and look at the numbers. In 2000, there were just 30 schools competing in NCTTA tournaments. When the 2010-2011 season wrapped up, there were 148 colleges and universities with table tennis teams in the USA and Canada.

One solid chunk of NCTTA turf is Eastern Canada. The region qualified four powerful top 15-ranked teams to the Championships in Rochester: the University of Ottawa, Toronto, Western Ontario and Waterloo. “Eastern Canada is developing into one of our strongest divisions,” says NCTTA President Willy Leparulo.

While our friends in the land of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and incredibly snowy winters are hot and rising to the top, let’s not forget perennial powerhouse Texas Wesleyan. The TWU Rams captured the coed and women’s team titles yet again in Rochester in mid-April, but the collegians from Fort Worth battled every inch of the way to get it done.

Just ask TWU coach Jasna Rather, who recently returned home to the Fort Worth campus after seeing the action up-close in Minnesota. “Competition at the Nationals is stronger every year, and we always try to recruit better players to compete for top places,” she said. Bringing new and talented players to TWU is a must for the Rams to stay on top. There’s “a thin line between many teams,” Jasna noted of the rising competition on college campuses.

How competitive was it in Rochester?

Rather and other veteran coaches spotted players who were Olympic stars, North American champs, members of U.S. National Teams and teams from other nations.

Simply put, the tournament attracted terrific teams and players to Rochester. The NCTTA joined hands with the ACUI and great sponsors like Killerspin and Newgy to make the games a reality from April 15-17. “The NCTTA and ACUI tournament was truly a five-star tournament – from the level of playing to organization,” says Rather, a star player herself at TWU and before that in Bosnia.

At the Minnesota tourney, all of the Texas Wesleyan players did their part to see that the school kept its title as the national champion. It’s a habit for TWU to be No. 1, but this time, they found plenty of roadblocks in their path.

“When some of our players stumbled, then our new players were there to save us,” Rather said. She was referring to TWU newcomers like Yahao Zhang and Jose Barbosa who came through with clutch performances.

For the record, the Rams have now won eight straight coed team national championships. School officials say Texas Wesleyan has won 47 of a possible 65 championships since the program’s inception in 2002. That’s an incredible 70 percent of all national titles in the last ten years.

For the second straight year, the coed title came down to TWU and Lindenwood University of Missouri, and the Rams prevailed 3-2. The women’s final also came down to the same two foes. The Lady Rams took the match 3-1, recapturing the title from Lindenwood who won it last year.

Texas Wesleyan also took the top spot in men’s and women’s singles (wins by Mark Hazinksi and Sara Hazinski) men’s doubles and mixed doubles this year. They finished second in women’s doubles.

But again, it’s not just one strong team from Texas that comes to the table. Schools like Lindenwood in the Lower Midwest, a blitz of teams from Canada, Mississippi College in the Dixie Division, new kids on the block like Governors State near Chicago, and dynamic California teams like San Jose State are all potent forces in our fast-growing table tennis universe.

See the full set of results from the 2011 Championships at the official Championships website.

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