By Jia-Yu (Trinity) Sung
NCTTA Press Committee Member

Let’s talk about support systems.

Table tennis may be an individual game, but with collegiate table tennis, it’s ultimately a team sport. Behind the player on the table there’s countless unseen supporters and having your most fervent fan in your corner could make a world’s difference, whether it’s a coach or a friend. For Rice University’s Daniela Yano, it’s boyfriend Kevin Li.

Pursuing her PhD at the prestigious Rice University following her undergraduate years at Columbia, Daniela first met Kevin at a Los Angeles table tennis tournament where fate seemingly placed them in the same round robin group. Fate was actually Kevin’s direct request to be switched into her round robin group. Despite dashing his hopes of advancing from the group in favor of conversing with Daniela, Kevin never regretted it. Wryly but with affection, Kevin admits “it’s so fun losing [to Daniela] every time.”

With such a fortuitous meeting, their relationship continued steadfastly despite the long distance separation. Kevin himself also built a parallel career in collegiate table tennis as a Master’s student at the University of Southern California following his bachelor’s in UC San Diego, and now he happily coaches the Rice University team in support of Daniela.

Continuously building each other up, the couple embodies the spirit of collaborative growth in table tennis and the connections possible through the sport, an aspect that every player learns to treasure with collegiate table tennis. Contemplative, Daniela agrees, “table tennis is not the central thing in my life anymore, but it still plays such a central role.”

Moral of the story? Sign up for more round robin tournaments.

(Featured on left is Daniela Yano and on right is Kevin Li. Photo credit to Dennis Yanga).

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the
National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The
event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed
Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US
Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live
stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis
Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to
promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org

Joel Lidstrom, Press Committee Member

The NCTTA Championships are a great spectacle each year: teams and their athletes marching together; their camaraderie a joy to see; their excitement palpable.

But there was another team this year, one that did not compete, one that no one had heard of, whose skills have been honed by dint of hard work, as if they, too, aspire to be top seeds.
The Innocent Men, an all-male acapella group, performed both the Canadian and American National Anthems to commemorate the opening of our NCTTA championship. To say that they received thunderous applause is an understatement.
Said tenor Conner Moll, member of the group and a music theater major at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, “We do National Anthems for sporting events pretty often, but were surprised and flattered at the response, especially at such a major event!”

Conner was joined by Mitch Pettijohn, Andrew Kroll, Sam Kroll, Duncan Reyburn, Isaac Geffers, Eric Augustine, Brett Dutkowski, and Soren Johnson, all students at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. They rehearsed for several hours on the Canadian anthem (which they had never sung), and equally long on a new arrangement of the American anthem.
Singing a capella is an enormous challenge. Multiple parts move independently (not unlike table tennis doubles!), typically with complex harmonies…all without the support of an instrument to reinforce the pitch.
Kudos to The Innocent Men for their musicianship and generous contribution to this great event!

(Featured in photo are members of The Innocent Men. Photo Credit to Dennis Yanga.)

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the
National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The
event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed
Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US
Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live
stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis
Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to
promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org

Shaquila Sarapao, Press Committee Member

Eau Claire, Wisconsin, has been a mainstay location for NCTTA. This year marks their third year hosting the collegiate national tournament, the past years being in 2015 and 2017. As the host, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire sent in a team of four that turned into a three-person Coed team.

Their president Carter Tacke, a senior majoring in Information Systems, notes their excitement to be hosting. Tacke says, “This has been a really cool opportunity to play people with such a higher skill level than us, and it’s a really good learning opportunity.” He has been leading the club and, although not the biggest organization on their campus, is pleased at the amount of people showing up to their practices.

In their first matchup, they played against eleven-seed Cornell University. Porter Ball, another senior who is majoring in International Business, was able to hold his ground during his match. Ball kept up with the pace and stayed level-headed during the intense rallies. However, it was not enough as he was defeated 0-3. Despite the loss, he was very satisfied at how he played today. “At the start, I was a little bit nervous. I had some fans watching me and as the home team, you want to do well… I had some good points. He had some good points, and overall, it was a good match.”

Leading up to the tournament, besides practicing, they reviewed game highlights on Youtube and watched trick shots and best smashes of all time to motivate themselves.

UWEC played again in the Consolations bracket and lost to Boston University 1-3.

(Featured in photo are members of UWEC's table tennis team. Photo credit to Dennis Yanga)

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Michael Reff
Press Committee Chair

For the third time the College TT Champs is in Eau Claire,
And without surprise it opened with much deserved fanfare!
The two main events that were completed today,
Were men’s and women’s doubles, a clinical display!

Both the men’s and women’s doubles champs of 2022,
Clinched another title this year and they might not be through.

To start, on the women’s side the Texas Wesleyan pair,
Of Jiaqi Lin and Zhen Deng claimed the title without a scare.
These veteran players displayed their technique and acumen.
A formidable duo, fierce competitors and friends.

What’s more, for the men’s doubles, Indiana’s Alguetti brothers,
Convincingly showed they came on top amongst all the others,
Their chemistry through blood is palpable, passion so fierce,
With resounding cho’s and exclamations they manage to beat out all peers.

In addition to these events the opening ceremony and processional,
Was full of great excitement and music professional.
With national anthems played none were dismayed all did rejoice.
So tune in to tomorrow’s games, Friday is over, make some noise!

(Photo of Sharon and Gall Alguetti. Photo credit to Dennis Yanga)

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the
National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The
event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed
Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US
Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live
stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis
Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to
promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org

Shaquila Sarapao, Press Committee Member

People have heard of Adam Bobrow, World Table Tennis, and Pongfinity—influential Youtubers and table tennis enthusiasts. But have you heard of PandaPong?

PandaPong, who goes by the name Brian Zhao, plays for the University of Texas Dallas team. Last year, however, he was on the sidelines as their coach. A University of Texas Austin alumni and a current MBA student, he has been practicing with UTD since the fall with a couple years of eligibility left. He returns to the collegiate scene, starting Nationals by playing men’s doubles with Oliver Wang, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering.

Their first match against UCLA’s Daniel Zhou and Yuan Xu was a sound win, beating them 3-0. Zhao says, “It was my first match back, and it was good to pass through the first round. I think last year in doubles, they lost in the first round, so this year we already performed better, so that’s something to be excited about.”

The UTD team has had a number of memorable players coming in and out throughout the years. Zhao being a coach-turned-player, the opposite could be said to Tai Zhang. Graduating from UTD last year and now in medical school, Zhang played for the team and has now come back to coach his former teammates.

Another soon-to-be-graduate shares his sentiment to his team. Wang notes, “Since this is my last year playing and because this is my third year being on the team, I would have one more year to play NCTTA. But I’m happy to be able to have, hopefully, a good last run with UT Dallas.”

In their next match, Zhao and Wang fell to the number one seeds and eventual champions, Sharon and Gal Alguetti, brothers from Indiana University, 1-3. However, they’ll still continue on to playing in Coed Teams and Men’s Singles.

(Photo of UT Dallas' Brian Zhao. Photo credit to Dennis Yanga).

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org

Joel Lidstrom, Press Committee Member

Among the myriad matches going on around me, one catches my eye. MIT defensive specialist Sophie Wu, twiddling smooth black and long-pipped red rubber, had lost the first two games to Virginia's Jie Lu. Finally poised to take a game and gain some momentum, Wu is up 9-5. But Lu's succession of tremendous smashes on high chops, followed by missed Wu chops on easy loops, brings Lu back to 8-9.

Sensing victory, Lu's pressure forces a weak defensive shot sure to miss the table and tie the score. But no! Luck intervenes. Wu's chop clips the top of net for a winner, propelling her to the next point and the game.

With a match score of 2-1, Wu redoubles her chopping intensity, and her twiddling begins to force errors. Lu is missing high "put-away" balls, and floating pushes as Wu now becomes the attacker.
Recognizing that she had lost confidence in her attacking, Lu abruptly changes her strategy. Instead of attacking early and intensely, she loops and pushes carefully, waiting five, six, seven shots before getting one she trusts to smash. The strategy succeeds, and leads to an MIT timeout, with Virginia up 8-6.

Wu then catches a little luck once again: an unforced error from Lu, Lu’s blown serve, and a pips edge ball evens the score at 9-all. Can Wu eke out yet another tortured win?

After Wu’s tremendous, chopped save out wide that comes to naught, Lu's power smash gives her match point. But she misses the smash! Did she just invite a fifth and deciding game?

Not a chance. Lu's hotly played point with smashes and a nifty counter-smash returns her to match point. With a high and short chop from Wu, Lu ends it with a thunderous forehand.

Happy but relieved, Lu told me, "I knew I had to change my tactics. I became conservative, hitting safe loops and pushes, and waiting way longer to finish the point.”
It was indeed, the perfect tactic.

(Pictured here is Jie Lu of Virginia. Photo credit by Dennis Yanga)

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Willy Leparulo; Guest writer
NCTTA Press Committee

The NCTTA Coed Team event is a highly anticipated competition that showcases the best collegiate table tennis teams in North America. The coed team event is the crown jewel as it allows the best men and women to compete together for their respective school. The Coed team provides a platform for these student athletes to strive for success together and make lasting memories and also bring back the hardware to their respective universities!
The 2024 College Table Tennis Championships will feature all six Regional Champions as well as wildcard schools. Our Regional Champions are:

Indiana University- Midwest Region Champion
New York University- Northeast Region Champion
Texas Wesleyan University- South Region Champion
University of California, Berkeley- West Region Champion
University of Virginia- Mid Atlantic Region Champion
University of Western Ontario- Great Lakes Region Champion
Let the games begin!

(Pictured here is the Texas Wesleyan University team projected to be one of the top seeds)
(Photo by Yukong Zhang)

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Michael Reff
Press Committee Chair

The 2024 Eau Claire NCTTA Championships promise to unleash the firepower from all athletes. One highly anticipated event is Men’s Doubles.

What makes doubles so exciting? I turned to none other than doubles enthusiast and NCTTA VP Joe Wells for his take.

“Doubles is such an enjoyable format,” Wells remarked.

“Unlike the many other racket/paddle sports, having each participant have to play the shot places a tough dynamic that requires strategy, supreme footwork, and constant communication between points. During my collegiate years I was fortunate enough to team up with a lanky lefty [he’s referring to me, folks!]. Many people feel that a lefty right team is an optimal position on the table. He and I had great success, and that set-up in dexterity played a big role in it.”

The top-seeded pair for this year’s Championship Men’s Doubles event are the Alguetti brothers Sharon and Gal from Indiana University. They already have the 2022 title under their belt and definitely have Wells’ aforementioned doubles qualities to go the distance again.

However, they will face some steep competition from predominantly Texas Wesleyan University (four pairs are in the top 10!) and California schools. Additionally, No. 3 seeds University of Chicago pair Chenxi Sui and Kenny Jiang are dark horses, as no one heard of Sui, a 2600 rated PhD student, until now.

VP Joe Wells is looking forward to the Men’s Doubles event, and so should you! Catch all the action starting Friday 4/12 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin!

(Photo by Yukong Zhang)

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. PongSpace, Joola, the US Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

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 Press Committee

NCTTA hosts a Men's Singles event every year at the College Table Tennis Championships. This year we see a "who's who" of table tennis might! We have current and former domestic and international team players representing their country, themselves, and most importantly, their schools! Something to chew on is that the lowest rated player in the Men's Singles draw is a player rated above 2000. Let that resonate: there are no players below 2000 in Men's Singles!

NCTTA Vice President, Joe Wells stated enthusiastically, "There is no where to hide in Men's Singles this year. Where else can you get such a competitive tournament in the USA?!"

A favorite to take the Men's Singles competition is USA Table Tennis board member, MLTT player and #1 player for UC Berkeley, Nikhil Kumar. The junior Computer Science major has a lot on his plate school wise and table tennis wise. Busy people are successful people and while that is true, Kumar certainly will have a busy Men's Singles draw fending off all of the 2000+ rated players coming for the Men's Singles title! Check out the NCTTA Men's Singles kicking off in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on April 12th to 14th!

(picture of Nikhil Kumar)
(Photo by Dennis Yanga)

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

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
Press Committee Chair

Coaches come in all shapes and sizes in NCTTA. Sometimes paid, mostly unpaid, sometimes alumni, sometimes current players and even faculty! The bottom line is that they are passionate about imparting their technical knowledge and leadership in our great Olympic sport of table tennis. They also instill values of discipline and time management when it comes to balancing athletics and studies.

As NCTTA President/FSU table tennis coach Willy Leparulo states, “Coaches are fundamental in NCTTA providing both an on and off the table expertise.”

The 2024 NCTTA Championships in Eau Claire, Wisconsin is a perfect time for coaches to see how they and their players’ hard work have paid off. Although not all schools have coaches, there still is a large cohort that do. Some schools, such as Boston University and Texas Wesleyan University are even bringing 4 coaches for their respective teams! A lot of times a school brings a women’s and coed team, as well as singles and doubles players, so it’s great to get a lot of different coaches who specialize in each of these areas.

Judging by the passion and loudnproud cheering of coaches during NCTTA events, it’s safe to say that coaches are not just living vicariously through their players but are actually witnessing all their efforts come to fruition.
NCTTA salutes all those hardworking coaches who have devoted their time to making college table tennis an exciting team sport!

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org