By: Erica Tran
NCTTA Media Committee

Table tennis has always been a largely male-dominant sport. Not only are there many more male players, but the fan base is also very skewed in the gender department. However, NCTTA is lucky to have a number of strong female athletes. Most seasoned is Angela Guan from UC Berkeley, the top seed for Women’s Singles, and a familiar face to many. She is a chopper and has been in the international, national, and college table tennis scene for years.

Closely behind Angela are Zhen Deng and Jiaqi Lin from Texas Wesleyan University, two very strong players who will give Angela a run for the title. There are also many former youths who have competed avidly before college, including Tia Hsieh from Yale, Kelly Zhao from UT Austin, and Lavanya Maruthapandian from UC Berkeley. Beyond these players, there are dozens more strong female athletes to showcase girl power at the championships! 16 teams will compete for the Women’s Teams title, with the top 4 seeds being Texas Wesleyan, UC Berkeley, MIT, and Columbia.

Photo credit to Shashank Shastry

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Willy Leparulo; guest writer
NCTTA Media Committee

They always ask us “How do you do it?” The real answer is: not without volunteers.

NCTTA is a national organization unlike any other, with no paid staff run by a volunteer board of directors and a volunteer staff. NCTTA manages a 5 star event all with the power of people!

Volunteers from across the continent (USA and Canada) are the heart and soul of one of the best events in North America!

NCTTA competitions happen all over North America led by volunteers, and these same people (mostly Alumni) come together once a year at the NCTTA Championships to work 12 hour days to make the event better than they had it when they were in school. Truly #payingITforward in every aspect.

Volunteers operate the live stream, umpire important matches, manage registration and practice areas. Willy Leparulo, Volunteer Director of the champs among other things says, “We arrive early and stay late. Where else can you ask people to work from sun up to sun down with no pay and still have a smile on their faces at the end of the day?”

NCTTA is thankful to have friends in Texas like Vlad Farcas who runs the San Antonio Table Tennis Club, https://satabletennis.org/ Marguerite Cheung of Austin Table Tennis Club https://www.austintabletennis.net/ and Scott Ryan of the Dallas/Ft Worth area. Without these movers and shakers of the Texas table tennis world, we wouldn’t be able to put on this great event.

Photo credit to Grant Bergmann

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Willy Leparulo; guest writer
NCTTA Media Committee

Every year that the College Table Tennis Championships are held, there are one or two schools that come to the forefront of the competition as the most passionate, the most proud, and the most hashtag #LoudNProud.

NCTTA has a reputation within the sport of table tennis for increasing the decibel level at any tournament venue they go! Enter University of Massachusetts Amherst, where passion and cheering take on a new meaning.

UMass Amherst will be attending the NCTTA Championships for the 1st time in the program’s history. They qualified in 2020 but the Championships were canceled due to COVID. Let’s take a look at their journey through the eyes of their top player and current coach, John McDermott.

UMass plays in the Northeast Region, which is one of the toughest regions in the country, and, as McDermott says, “It is a dogfight”. Other more established schools have decade-long foundations to lean on. McDermott, after losing a number of top players pre covid, was forced to “Build from within,” and build they did with an armada of passionate, hard training college table tennis players cheering at every point like it was their last.

McDermott also coaches the team and stated, “Effort is my greatest priority, if you put the time in, you will play.” They are a strong community and as McDermott says, “all of the heart and noise is homegrown and developed in uptown Amherst.” Click here to see more what we mean about their passion: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CSMs0U3ArxX/?hl=en

The UMass number one makes one last request, “Put us on center court at nationals, so your live stream can see what we mean.”

The request is noted and forwarded.

Photo credit to Dennis Yanga

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Willy Leparulo; guest writer
NCTTA Media Committee

Numbers, numbers, numbers, they are everywhere. I am not just talking about the fact that NCTTA uses an odd scoring team system: 4 singles and 1 doubles tiebreaker. No other table tennis competition uses our system!

I want to take a journey through the numerical nuances that exist and live in our current edition of the NCTTA Championships here in 2022:

52 Colleges and Universities

79 Men’s Singles

39 Women’s Singles

24 Men’s/Coed Teams

16 Women’s Teams

32 Men’s Doubles

14 Women’s Doubles

261 Student Athletes and Coaches

101 Volunteers

21 Countries

The NCTTA is a veritable mini United Nations just within this Championship event. We have male and female athletes from all over the globe. From China to Bulgaria, Brazil to Dubai and, of course, the USA is well represented!

NCTTA, a National Organization in USA Table Tennis for the past 14 years, is also the governing body of College Table Tennis, and is excited to bring to Round Rock the plethora of international and domestic young collegiate stars on April 8-10th.

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

About NCTTA

The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

NCTTA is looking for coaches for the US Team Delegation for the World University Games in Chengdu, China. Coaches must be certified through USATT, ITTF or NCTTA. To apply, please email games@nctta.org with your resume and experience.

The World University Games will take place June 25- July 7, and further travel information will be forthcoming.

NCTTA College Table Tennis Championship are COMING SOON.

Here is the NCTTA Championship website: http://www.nctta.org/champs/2022/index.html
(Registration links are NOT updated yet as of this message)
Those invited will get emails from NCTTA.app!

Here are also some IMPORTANT rules on COVID that NCTTA will be using: http://nctta.org/doc/covid/Important%20NCTTA%20Championship%20COVID%20Re...

The old adage "better safe than sorry" is what we are adapting.

School teams and Singles players will get invitations via the NCTTA.app in the March 8th week!

TIME TO GET EXCITED!
Regionals are right around the corner!

Registration Deadlines:
For Direct Qualifiers: 1 week before your regional competition by 11:59 PM
(Sat. by 11:59 PM for Sat. competitions. Sun. by 11:59 PM for Sun. competitions)

For Wildcards: 3 days before your regional competition by 11:59 PM
(Wed. by 11:59 PM for Sat. competitions. Thu. by 11:59 PM for Sun. competitions)

Curious if you are invited or going to get invited click here!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-HI0wZDDT4hAdFUU3Ig8THpVUVf2aup6...

Hello all NCTTA College Teams,

I know several of you have been emailing NCTTA about information about the Regional Championship Invitations. We appreciate
your being patient as we get that going here very soon.

This is a long email, please read it all.

NOTE: This is NOT your official invitation

You will NOT be able to register for the event until you get the official invitation via your email.

Where are the Regional Championships?
Click here for that information: http://nctta.org/content/regionals
If you don't know which region you are a part of please ask, don't assume.

In NCTTA, each division has
-Men/Coed Team winners,
-Women's Team winners,
-Men's and Women's Singles winners

Winners of these events are called "Direct Qualifiers" and will be invited to Regionals this week Feb. 12th week; through an official email.

Direct qualifiers can ONLY be invited after a division is completed (there are 6 more divisions this weekend and those direct qualifiers will be invited next week)

Registration will be done through nctta.app

Each region will allow Wildcard Teams and Singles players based on NCTTA ratings.
Wildcard singles and teams are invited next week; Feb. 14th week

Thank you for your patience and participation let us know what questions you have by emailing info@nctta.org

NCTTA

As you may recall, NCTTA recently held trials at the US Open to select players to represent Team USA in the table tennis event of the World University Games in Chengdu, China this coming summer. This is a call out to submit your name if you are interested in being considered as an alternate for the men's and women's teams, should any of the original qualifiers be unable to participate: please send an email to games@nctta.org no later than 11:59pm PT on February 22, 2022.

Alternates will be selected to be on Team USA based on usatt ratings as of February 22 in descending order. If you meet the eligibility requirements below, we encourage you to reach out! We will select and announce the final teams no later than March 8, 2022. Please note that at this time no financial assistance is available.

Singles registration for Spring Divisional tournaments is now OPEN!

You can register for Singles following these steps:

1. Sign in to https://nctta.app and navigate to Registration, then select Singles from the dropdown menu
2. On the Singles Meet page, find the correct Division that you play in and click the Register button
3. On the Active Players page, find the player (or players if registering multiple at the same time) and click the Register button for the player(s). After adding the player(s), click the Review Cart button
   • If you cannot find the player, add them or make them active under the My Club page
4. On the Registration Review page, confirm the selected player(s), and complete payment by clicking the Checkout with PayPal button

Once payment is complete, you'll receive a confirmation email of the registered player(s)

Deadline for Singles registration is 72 hours before your tournament is scheduled!

Let us know if you have any questions or issues: info@nctta.org