By Andy Kanengiser
NCTTA Media Chair

Round Rock, Texas is billed as the "Sports Capital of Texas,'' and in the eyes of the NCTTA leadership team that's 100 percent true.

NCTTA officials in April announced they've selected the Round Rock Sports Center to host the 2021 college table tennis championships. The three-day tournament will bring 275 of the best college table tennis players in North America to the spacious 21st Century venue in the Lone Star State.

The COVID-19 outbreak in Spring 2020 caused the cancellation of the 2020 tournament in Round Rock in April. It was one of many events shut down worldwide due to the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

"We put the highest value on the health of our players, coaches, volunteers and fans. And while that was a big disappointment, their safety always comes first,'' says NCTTA President Willy Leparulo.

"But we love coming to Round Rock. This is a wonderful relationship dating back to 2016,'' Leparulo said. "So we are thrilled to announce we will return in 2021.''

Nancy Yawn, director of the Round Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, joins city officials delighted to see the 2021 collegiate table tennis championships back in her Texas hometown.

Based at 231 East Main Street, CVB officials always roll out the red carpet for all-star table tennis paddlers, coaches, fans, volunteers and family members. This will be the third time that Round Rock will host the NCTTA's biggest tournament of the year.

Located next-door to the capital city of Austin, Round Rock eats and breathes sports year-round. The Round Rock Express, a Triple A minor league baseball team is here. So is the 11,000-seat Kelly Reeves Athletic Complex, a first-class venue for football games. Round Rock hosts plenty of youth tournaments.

Having table tennis tournaments in the Lone Star State makes for a relatively short drive for the perennial national champions, Texas Wesleyan University. Led by Coach Jasna Rather, the superb Texas Wesleyan Rams players on the Fort Worth campus hail from countries across the globe, as well as the USA. Teams like the University of Texas Longhorns have an even shorter drive from the Austin campus.

Mississippi College won the 2020 South Regionals coed team championship in Fort Worth February 29-March 1 before the season was soon halted due to the rapid spread of COVID-19. Based in Clinton in Central Mississippi, MC defeated Texas Wesleyan at the Regionals. The two teams are likely to tangle once again at the 2021 championships in Round Rock.

"We know the Round Rock Sports Center is a fabulous venue. And we felt it was the right thing to do to give our Round Rock friends another shot in 2021,'' Leparulo said. "We are so glad it worked out. We are also eager to begin the 2020-21 season this Fall without worrying about this terrible virus.''

Hello all,

It brings me no pleasure to announce this, but there will be no College Table Tennis Championships this year in 2020. 

Here is the official message we are sending out:

"Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is cancelling the 2020 iSet College Table Tennis Championships. The safety of our athletes, volunteers, and sponsors is our highest priority, and this decision was made to ensure everyone's safety. Please contact info@nctta.org with any questions."

Big thanks to our sponsors who have supported our decisions: ISET, Doublefish, Double Happiness, Yapa Beauty

NCTTA is a volunteer run organization with no paid staff, 7 board members, 6 Regional Directors and a plethora of Committee members, chairs, division directors that support, manage and make our organization work year after year. 

It is upsetting to not crown our National Champions, but this is a pandemic and I want everyone to know that we tossed and turned with this decision for the past couple of weeks. Ultimately we believe we have made the right decision. We hope to still have your support moving forward. 

Thanks for your understanding, 

Willy Leparulo

Board of Directors

The University of Minnesota (UMN) is cool, calm and collected and anyone who’s a follower of Midwest Table Tennis knows about the University of Minnesota. UMN dominated the Minnesota division and continued that domination at the Midwest Regionals hosted at the University of Iowa. UMN was seeded #1 and did not lose a match beating opponents 3-1 and 4-0 in a comfortable win. 

Interesting to note Indiana University did not feature their top 2 players (two 2600’s) and still finished in 4th in the region, showing how deep Indiana University is.

Look for Jack Wang of Washington University St. Louis to continue his winning ways at the National Championships in his rookie season a sensational 19-1 record!

In College table tennis winning the “double double” is in reference to a school’s Men’s/Coed Team and Women’s team winning both championships in a said tournament. Ohlone College has done just that at the West Regionals at the SITTA club in Sacramento some weeks ago. Ohlone College, despite their smallish stature in terms of population (8,000 students) vs the juggernauts of the West Region like UC Berkeley, USC, etc., have really shown their true spirit. 

In addition to winning both team events, Ohlone players won the Men’s Singles and came in 2nd in the Women’s Singles. Bob Chen of Ohlone bested UC Riverside’s best, Victor Liu. On the women’s side San Jose State’s (which, by the way has got a great team this year) Yixiao Wang took out Ohlone College’s Qiao Jiao. 

West Region was missing a plethora of players due to the USA Trials the same weekend but still provided an insight to what will be one of the most competitive NCTTA Championships ever.

PIcture of Qiao Jiao (Pic by Xinye Ji)

In College table tennis winning the “double double” is in reference to a school’s Men’s/Coed Team and Women’s team winning both championships in a said tournament. Ohlone College has done just that at the West Regionals at the SITTA club in Sacramento some weeks ago. Ohlone College, despite their smallish stature in terms of population (8,000 students) vs the juggernauts of the West Region like UC Berkeley, USC, etc., have really shown their true spirit. 

In addition to winning both team events, Ohlone players won the Men’s Singles and came in 2nd in the Women’s Singles. Bob Chen of Ohlone bested UC Riverside’s best, Victor Liu. On the women’s side San Jose State’s (which, by the way has got a great team this year) Yixiao Wang took out Ohlone College’s Qiao Jiao. 

West Region was missing a plethora of players due to the USA Trials the same weekend but still provided an insight to what will be one of the most competitive NCTTA Championships ever.

PIcture of Qiao Jiao (Pic by Xinye Ji)

Underdog or surprise schools are just as much a part of sport as the favored school.  How many times have you seen a team and think “They have no chance” and when they start showing signs of life you back them because you want to see the underdog win? The University of Massachusetts at Amherst was not a seeded school in the Northeast Region hosted at the  Westchester Table Tennis club. 

Umass Amherst came through the prelim Round Robin winning all of their matches and into the QF, SF and Finals and they just kept winning! Northeast Regional Director Ariel Chen says “They were the never say die kind of team, they kept on fighting when all odds were against them, a fan favorite at the regional champs.” 

Coach Andrew Tan is always so eloquent in his replies and once said, “Life happens and it is never always perfect.” On this day, everything was perfect! Well done to Coach Tan and the players from UMass Amherst for giving the sportsfan in all of us an underdog to cheer for! Take note college table tennis fans this is how to support and fight for your team!

Picture of Umass Amherst team 

NCTTA’s Great Lakes Region is an altogether different region than most other college table tennis areas. It includes 2 divisions centrally placed in Canada (Greater Toronto and Canada East) as well as neighboring US-based college table tennis divisions. From NCTTA’s beginnings, Canadian college table tennis has and always will participate in our competitions. 

This year’s tournament was hosted by MyTTC Club in Mississauga and featured 10 Men’s/Coed Teams and 4 Women’s teams and a number of Men’s and Women’s singles to tote. Top schools in the Men’s/Coed competition were 3 out of 4 from Canada (University of Toronto, McGill and Western University) with Cornell University from Upstate NY holding up the US side. Canadian college table tennis is extremely strong. Toronto is led by Xuebo Li, Canadian Junior Table Tennis phenom. Universite du Montreal and University of Waterloo make up the other Canadian schools in the competition.The Women’s team competition featured much of the same Canadian super play with Western University besting University of Toronto. 

Generally Canadian schools have final exams around the NCTTA Championships, but if they can make it down this year, look for them to produce some quick looks and surprises.

They came, they saw and they dominated both the Men’s/Coed and Women’s Regional Team Championships. Duke University plays out of the NCTTA Carolina Division and for the most part they weren’t a known powerhouse until they came to Regionals and showed their colors. Duke University features men and women both well over 2000 which translated into a Regional Championship title in both areas!

Men’s and Women’s Singles were dominated however by newcomers, brothers from Montgomery College (new school to NCTTA) LeTuanKhoi and LeTuanKhai. The brothers brought their A game to the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center for the 1st and 2nd place honors. On the Women’s singles end, again a newcomer from Drexel University, Nhi Do bested Duke’s Claire Xiao (Duke) and Lucy Ma (UPenn) enroute to the title. 

Thanks to Lily Yip for hosting NCTTA’s Mid Atlantic Regionals. We always appreciate USATT clubs helping out!

Nhi Do from Drexel, Women's Singles Champ featured (Picture by Seemant Teotia)

The NCTTA 2020 South Regional Championships were held at the Texas Wesleyan Sid Richardson Gymnasium. For those who want to know  a little college table tennis history, this was the location of the 2005 and 2006 National College Championships! Fast Forward to 2020 and Texas Wesleyan is still among the most feared in college table tennis and is one of two scholarship schools in the nation. Mississippi College however has made a name for itself beating and being beaten by the Texas Wesleyan Rams. This year featured yet another majestic match up!

Mississippi College came in ranked slightly higher than the host school in the Men’s/Coed team competition, and with their new student athletes hailing from several South American countries as well as Russia they provided some firepower. MC would go on to defeat Texas Wesleyan in the Men’s/Coed team regional championships 3-1 as well as taking the Men’s singles championship with Vladyslav Totkalo defeating Texas Wesleyan’s left-handed master Raul Caballero Montes. 

Texas Wesleyan is very strong however in the women’s area as they took home the Women’s team title and the women’s singles championship with newcomer Jiaqi Lin defeating her teammate Zhen Deng ). 

One has to think with two scholarship table tennis schools that maybe the rest of the region isn’t so strong, but that’s not the case. UT Austin, coming in 3rd in Men’s/Coed teams and 2nd in Women’s teams, would be first place in most other regions. Let’s not forget UT San Antonio, Texas A&M University and Florida International University who are all looking for places in the wildcard for the National Championships.

Men's Singles final picture (by Grant Bergmann)

As always, we take pride in creating a positive environment for our student-athletes as well as our hardworking volunteer staff.

NCTTA Champs will take place as scheduled on April 3-5 at the Round Rock Sports Center in Round Rock, Texas. Round Rock Sports Center has implemented enhanced cleaning and sanitization, including adhering to the recommendations set forth in the U.S. EPA’s Emerging Pathogen Policy regarding cleaning disinfectants effective against the COVID-19 virus. We are working closely with our venue partners and aligning with local, state, and federal public health guidelines and agencies.

As the NCTTA Champs approaches, we will be constantly reviewing our health protection activities, public health messaging, hygiene and medical control measures with the aim of strengthening our COVID-19 response further in line with up-to-date public health advice and guidance, including that of the CDC.

NCTTA will start to invite teams and singles as early as tonight and certainly on Thursday, March 5th and in the following days. We are looking forward to an amazing event for everyone.

NCTTA Championship Committee