By Brayden Glad
NCTTA Media Committee

The first three rounds of Men’s singles produced a single upset in each round, and the other matches all held to form. This illustrates just how wide the margin is between the upper tier of US college table tennis and the players a few levels below. The notable upsets were #36 Nokhin Tong of Washington over #28 Benjamin Hartwiger of Texas A&M 3-1 in the round of 64, #21 LeTuanKhai Dinh of Maryland overcoming #13 Tianming Xie of Harvard in 5 sets in the round of 32, and finally #10 Sahil Puri of Washington defeating #8 Eduardo Tomoike of Texas in 5 sets in the round of 16.

The Women’s bracket likewise produced a single upset in the rounds of 32 and 16, and none in the quarterfinals. In the round of 32, #16 Yanyu Xie of Georgia Tech defeated #10 Andi Mai of NYU in four sets, and in the round of 16 #12 Lavanya Maruthapandian of California defeated #8 Maria Castillo of MIT 3-1.

-Fireworks and clashing styles fill singles semis and finals-

Upsets were few and far between in the Men’s and Women’s singles matchups, with all 4 top seeds making the semifinals in both events. In the Women’s bracket, #1 Angela Guan of California battles #3 Jiaqi Lin of Texas Wesleyan, while #2 Zhen Deng of Texas Wesleyan takes on Xin Li of Ohlone College.

The latter match proceeded at a rapid pace, with Zhen Deng overpowering Xin Li with short, rapid attacks to win four close, hard-fought sets at (10, 9, 7, 8). In contrast, the former match had its pace dictated by the methodical chopping of Angela Guan, and narrowly avoided the expedite rule in the first close set as Guan defeated Jiaqi Lin in 5 sets (9, 3, -5, 3, 6).

The finals promised to be a battle of contrasting styles, but Guan seemed more able to keep the pace to her liking as extended rallies of chops was the order of the day. The match went to the expedite system in set 3, and Guan was able to see out a (10, 7, 9, -4, 6) victory in relative comfort as the expedite system failed to provide Zhen Deng sufficient attacking chances.

In the Men’s bracket, #1 Sharon Alguetti of Indiana plays #4 Nikhil Kumar of California and #2 Kai Zhang of U. Southern California plays #3 Gal Alguetti of Indiana. Both matches featured fantastic attacking table tennis, with long, hard-fought rallies. In the end, the higher seeds were just slightly more accurate with those attacks, with Sharon Alguetti defeating Nikhil Kumar (4, -4, 7, 3, 2) and Kai Zhang outlasting Gal Alguetti (5, -10, 4, 7, -11, 9).

The finals delivered on their promise as a high-energy affair with multiple long counter-attacking rallies throughout the match. The match was a close, back-and-forth affair throughout, with Sharon Alguetti ultimately prevailing in an epic (-7, 9, 7, -8, 6, 8) win.

Photo of Angela Guan. Photo Credit to Dean Ginther

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 Brayden Glad
NCTTA Media Committee

Ten players who did not participate in the team events at Nationals have made it to the championship singles men’s bracket, while six such players have made it to the women’s singles bracket. In the opening round, a couple of matches were between such players, including Mingyu Zu of Boston College versus Trinity Sung of Cal Poly in the Women’s bracket.

Luke Zheng of Boston University took on Max Gu of Univ. of Central Florida and Theo Stevens of Oklahoma challenged Lingkun Kong of Rice in the Men’s bracket. Mingyu Zu, Lingkun Kong and Max Gu advanced.

After two rounds, the only member of the “lone wolves” still standing in the round of 16 of the Men’s bracket was Takato Tsuchiya of Cal State Northridge. There were five women who met that criterion in the round of 16, however: Jie Lu of Virginia, Rachel Zhou of Illinois, Xin Li of Ohlone College, Yanyu Xie of Georgia Tech and Mingyu Zu of Boston College are all in the bracket.

Takato Tsuchiya was defeated in the round of 16 by Jack Wang of Northwestern, eliminating the last non-represented school player from the men’s bracket. Of the four women in the round of 16, only Xin Li managed to win, defeating Yanyu Xie, Then Li followed that up with another win against Kelly Zhao of Texas to reach the semifinals. However, Li’s run would end there with a straight-sets loss to #2 Zhen Deng of Texas Wesleyan. All of the finalists in both events would be those we saw playing in the high level team events yesterday.

Photo of Max Gu. 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 Michael Reff
NCTTA Media Committee

Over the course of NCTTA’s championship history, women’s singles competition has produced two champions from Ohlone College. Alums Ying Wang and Qiao Jiao both clinched the title in Round Rock, TX 2016 and Greensboro, NC 2019 respectively.

After a two year postponement of the Champs due to the pandemic, Ohlone returned in full force in the form of one determined women’s singles player: Xin Li.

Originally from Shan Xi, China, Li is a business major and has her sights set on attaining her US citizenship and transferring to UC Berkeley (interesting to note is that several Ohlone players have become Golden Bears as well).

Li has a unique game using smooth inverted rubber on the forehand side and medium pips on the backhand, the latter creating a sort of knuckleball. She creates spinny forehand loops and excellent serves, blocking more with the backhand to force errors from her opponents.

Seeded 4th in the women’s singles competition, Li plowed through the earlier elimination before ultimately losing in straight sets to eventual women's finalist Zhen Deng of Texas Wesleyan University. Despite not reaching the finals, Li had a strong 3rd place showing, demonstrating her loudnproud nature on the table and determination up to the end.

Due to her high ranking in the women’s competition on Sunday, she arrived early to help volunteer with the setup of the venue. She and her husband Lijun Cheng have been invaluable volunteers, lugging heavy equipment around and also scorekeeping for other matches.

Li says she likes to volunteer, believing that “volunteers are not selfish” and, regarding the setup and volunteerism of NCTTA, “everybody works so hard [to] make the team so strong and the place perfect.”

Unfortunately for this year, Li does not have teammates at her college, but she has been practicing with other elite players such as Olympian/California player Nikhil Kumar and Joanna Sung of the women’s national team to maintain her form.

The pandemic has produced many sacrifices for her, such as having to leave her 3 year-old-son in China since the onset of Covid-19 occurred. However, she says she has several family members taking care of him so she “just need[s] to focus on school and practice a lot, focus on GPA” because “high performance equals hopefully citizenship.”

Li had already been making waves in Divisionals and Regionals competition as a finalist in both tournaments, so she was intent on going the distance.

Despite being only in the single’s competition, the NCTTA can truly attest to her being a team player as a volunteer.

Kudos to Li’s results and best of luck achieving the American Dream!

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 Brayden Glad
NCTTA Media Committee

New York University, the #2 overall seed brought 4 players with ratings over 2500 and were the only team able to do so. They made that depth at all 4 positions count as they rolled through the championship bracket to reach the final with consecutive sweeps of Texas and Washington. Then in the drama-filled final, they made their advantage count, with gritty 5-set wins on Tables 1 and 4 by Jeremy Hazin (2593) and Mudit Dani (2548), along with a comfortable win on Table 2 by Calvin Chan (2345). This is their second national championship with their first coming in 2018, also in Round Rock, Texas!

Not to be lost in this is the impressive accomplishment of Indiana. Under ordinary circumstances, one does not think of Indiana University as a table tennis powerhouse. However, these are not ordinary circumstances, and the Alguetti brothers are not ordinary table tennis players. Sharon (2681) and Gal (2623) carried the Indiana University team to the final without losing a match prior to this ultimate showdown. Siddhesh Kubal (2349) had 3 match points on Table 4 to force a deciding doubles match but came up just short.

All in all, it was some of the most exciting table tennis of the entire tournament, with 3 matches being decided in the fifth set.

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
NCTTA Media Committee

Texas Wesleyan University and UC Berkeley are no strangers to the Championship Team Finals and this year’s finale is no exception in the Women’s Team competition. UC Berkeley seeded #2 led by Angela Guan and #1 seeds Texas Wesleyan led by Jiaqi Lin and Zhen Deng are odds end favorites.

Texas Wesleyan has won the women’s team event a record 9 times! Coach Jasna Rather and Coach Doru Gheorge put together an excellent women’s squad to be able to make it to this point. Jiaqi Lin and Zhen Deng are #2 and 3 in Women’s singles and lead the Coed Texas Wesleyan Team as well.

This year’s finale fittingly went to doubles after the stars for Texas Wesleyan and for California fought to a stalemate. Angela Guan (2492)’s win for California over Zhen Deng (2485) on table one was countered by Jiaqi Lin (2475)’s win over Lavanya Maruthapandian (2123) and tables 3 and 4 were likewise split.

The Texas Wesleyan University women’s team took the championship title for their 10th time.

Photo Credit to Yukong Zhang

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 Brayden Glad
NCTTA Media Committee

The early rounds of the Co-ed and Women’s championship knockout stage mostly held to form, with the biggest surprise being the story of #17 UNC-Charlotte, who advanced to the round of 8 in their debut at Nationals through an upset of a shorthanded #13 Michigan team. #4 Northwestern continued its disappointing run at the tournament by falling to #6 California 3-1 in the round of 12. #5 USC ended cross-town rival #22 UCLA’s Cinderella run with a comprehensive 3-1 victory in the Round of 12, and #7 Texas dispatched #15 UC-Irvine by the same score.

In the Co-ed round of 8, UNC-Charlotte’s excellent run finally came to end as they fell to #8 Washington 3-1, while Indiana handled USC 3-1 and NYU swept Texas 3-0. The highlight of the round was #6 California’s battle with #3 Texas Wesleyan, which went to a doubles decider that Texas Wesleyan won comfortably.

An interesting thing to note about the previous two team’s doubles lineup were the clash of styles: Angela Guan of California chopping with long pips, fellow Golden Bear Nikhil Kumar with regular smooth rubber on both sides, along Zhen Deng of Texas Wesleyan with pips on the backhand for controlled blocking and her J-pen paddling teammate Eduardo Tomoike, which only enables play with one side of the racquet.

Semifinal Action

The Women’s semifinals proceeded briskly, with #2 California sweeping #5 Texas while #1 Texas Wesleyan defeated #3 MIT 3-1. The Co-ed semifinals had #2 NYU complete a comprehensive 3-0 victory over #8 Washington, while the #1 Indiana- #3 Texas Wesleyan matchup brought some drama.

Indiana’s Star brothers Sharon (2681) and Gal Alguetti (2623), undefeated in the tournament and winners of yesterday’s doubles event, were sent to team doubles for the first time all tournament when their compatriots were unable to come through in singles. They took on the team of Zhen Deng (2485) and Edwardo Tomoike (2454) and defeated them in straight sets to advance to the final.

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 Michael Reff and Willy Leparulo
NCTTA Media Committee

Eric Pattison is a Stanford University doctoral student with a heart of gold. An American Para player utilizing a paddle he created himself (“I even tried to make my own rubber which was a disaster LOL” he says), Pattison states that “ping pong is the reason I’m doing chemical engineering.”

He is a multiple US Open champion who attributes his experiences in table tennis to establishing global friendships through international competitions. “I am the luckiest person on the face of the earth!” he exclaims, a line reminiscent of the late baseball great Lou Gehrig.

Pattison says his Stanford squad was invited to the champs right in the nick of time, “in other words within 30 minutes of the deadline!”

Right away when arriving at the venue, everyone could note Pattison’s infectious smile and willingness to help. NCTTA President Willy Leparulo appreciated the kind gesture from Pattison when he offered to lug some registration boxes from the hotel, but politely declined, saying that Pattison “is a guest.”

Pattison only has high praise for the NCTTA Champs event, remarking that it’s “One of the most well-run tournaments I have ever been to.”

Pattison and his team had quite a difficult preliminary draw, playing the likes of first seeded Indiana University, 12 seeded Yale, and 13 ranked Michigan, to ultimately end their participation at the tourney today against WUSTL in a double’s tie breaking match. This final match followed wheelchair rules, where no alternating points were allowed. WUSTL’s strategy was to avoid Pattison’s deceptive twiddling pips shots in favor of his teammate’s more standard style.

In addition to table tennis, Pattison also has a background in politics as a former student member of the Washington Student Achievement Council. According to a 2015 press release from the WSAC, “One of Pattison’s priorities is to ensure students have access to a quality education.”

With brains, table tennis prowess, and a heart of gold, Pattison has won us over on and off the table as a model NCTTA college athlete!

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 Brayden Glad
NCTTA Media Committee

In the first round of competition, the underdogs provided a few surprises, the biggest being #22 UCLA overcoming #9 Maryland 3-1. Close matches included #4 Northwestern and #8 Washington needing doubles to overcome #16 Texas A&M and #20 Massachusetts, respectively. #18 Carnegie Mellon received a difficult introduction to the NCTTA nationals, losing to #6 California 4-0 in their first-ever match.

Continuing onward, the opening matches for Group 5 and the first set of women’s team matches went to form, with only #5 USC- #17 UNC-Charlotte providing intrigue. Unfortunately, a roster mismanagement led to USC defaulting the deciding doubles match, and giving debutants UNCC its first ever NCTTA nationals win 3-2. The #5 Texas and #3 MIT women’s teams needed doubles to defeat #13 Boston University and #11 Texas A&M respectively.

UCLA remains the underdog story of the tournament, defeating #14 UT-Dallas 3-1 to qualify for the next round.

Group 5 continued to provide drama, with #21 Washington University at Saint Louis upsetting UNC-Charlotte 3-1 and breaking the group wide open. Coupled with USC’s 3-1 win over the shorthanded #10 Rutgers, every team in that group stood at 1-1 with all to be decided in the 3rd match.

While the upsets by #22 UCLA removed any drama from Group 2, in the other groups little was decided going into the final game. The Yale-Michigan #12-13 showdown for advancement from group 1 was delayed by almost an hour by the MIT-Syracuse marathon, and also went to doubles, where Michigan advanced with #1 Indiana. NYU easily defeated UCLA and won Group 2.

All and all the day was for upsets, cheers and jubilation as the unexpected is now very much in the thick of things!

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 Michael Reff and Brayden Glad
NCTTA Media Committee

It’s already been an exciting day at the 2022 NCTTA Round Rock Championships. We’ve seen the beginning of the Coed and Women’s teams event as well as single’s competition, but the main attraction for the evening were the dazzling displays of doubles talent.

High performing athletes that have already graced the national and international arenas gave the crowd quite a show tonight. On the men’s side, 2017 US Men’s National Doubles Champions, brothers Sharon and Gal Alguetti from Indiana University (IU), clinched the NCTTA Men’s Doubles title over NYU’s Jeremy Hazin and Mudit Dani 3-1. Despite the NYU pair losing, they put up a great fight with a strong crowd behind them. Ultimately the perfect communication between the IU twins proved too much for the lefty/righty pairing.

Sharon said of the competition, “These are the same people we have trained with in this part of the draw.” IU coach Luke Gillespie added, “ The kids have trained together and know each other’s games very well. This is the top echelon of Table Tennis in the United States and Canada. We are pleased to be a part of this tournament’s success.”

For the Women’s doubles finals it was an all Texas affair. Zhen Deng and Jiaqi Lin of the perennial women’s champs school Texas Wesleyan University ultimately captured the hardware and continued their school’s laudable reputation for winning the title after defeating Eden (LeiJie) Qi and Kelly Zhao of Texas 3-1 as well.

If this is any indication of what’s to come, we are in store for many more excellent matches tomorrow and Sunday! Tune in bright and early to the live streaming at the 2022 Round Rock Champs April 9 for more ponging prowess!

Pictured here are the new Men's Doubles Champions from Indiana University, Sharon and Gal Alguetti

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 Michael Reff
NCTTA Media Committee

University of California, Irvine player Hitoki Kidahashi is not your typical college freshman. Born in Japan, he then moved to China at a very early age, ultimately ending up in Hawaii. Kidahashi is an ambitious Computer Science/Japanese double major hoping to add a 3rd field of study in either education or general engineering to his already packed schedule.

In addition to his intense passion for table tennis, he’s also an internationally ranked Rubik’s cube puzzle solver.

Kidahashi wears multiple hats at the 2022 championships. For UC Irvine he’s basically every officer and position imaginable for the team: president, treasurer, team manager, team captain, training and on court coach, as well as safety, cleaner, and equipment manager! He’s also participating in the Men’s singles, doubles, and Coed teams events.

Consequently, he’s a perfect candidate for NCTTA volunteerism. Kidahashi caught the NCTTA volunteering bug after participating in the West Regionals and hearing about another player going to nationals as a volunteer. He found out about the different positions he could do in the Champs and reached out, inquiring, “Do you guys need more volunteers? I can help,” ultimately signing up for the Registration area.

After volunteering Thursday afternoon, he proceeded to diligently help his team in an evening multi-ball practice to prepare for their ensuing competitions.

When asked about what motivates him to take on so many responsibilities, he responds with computer programming humor: “recursion.” He says that because he is in multiple positions, it makes him inevitably take on more tasks. This recursive trait might be easily identified as a dominant one in the genetic makeup of all our loudnproud volunteers at the NCTTA!

Kidahashi has said that he used to think he was an introvert early in life, but ultimately realized he just needed to bond with people of shared interests. In high school he already demonstrated leadership skills as he managed the Rubik’s cube and cyber security club.

He has found his niche in table tennis, and, as NCTTA is the ultimate college table tennis social network, we hope to see him for many years to come as the multihyphenated NCTTA player volunteer!

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