Triumphant First Weekend of Season 2 Dominated by Hometown Portland and Resurgent Florida
From Liam Pitchford's MLTT list of goals. #1: Ultimate Golden Point Winner? Check! New Florida Croc and #1 draft selection Liam Pitchford had himself quite the inaugural performance in MLTT play.
September 17, 2024. There are so many hot takes coming on the heels of the first weekend of play in season 2 that we almost don’t know where to start…but let’s go with this one: Liam Pitchford is already worth every farthing the Florida Crocs paid to draft him first overall. More on Pitchford later, but for now suffice it to say that he had himself one helluva Hello World introduction to Major League Table Tennis and the colonial table tennis fans on this side of the pong pond.
Still, it would be remiss to not begin with the revamped hometown Portland Paddlers because they had themselves not only a resounding first showing, but arguably the best performance of all four teams this past weekend. Under perfect conditions within the Viking Pavilion on the campus of beautiful Portland State University, thanks to the fantastic work of the crack MLTT team the home team got to show their stuff to a rapt audience and they did not disappoint. At home, the livestream viewers were once again treated to the best announcers in the sport, with the west coast team of ESPN’s Evan Lepler and Sean O’Neill providing expert play-by-play, color analysis, and post-match interviews.
SWEDE KILLS! Portland's Swedish experiment got off to a smashing start as the top of the roster players proved to be a potent duo, combining a world of experience with power and grit. Both Lunqvist and Nördberg hit the ground running, showing no signs of adjustment issues to MLTT's unique format. SKOL!
PORTLAND CAME TO PLAY
In front of a wildly supportive crowd, the new-look Paddlers came out of the gates smoking with a beatdown of the shorthanded Bay Area Blasters on Friday evening. They had their Saturday evening tilt with last year’s finalists, the Princeton Revolution, all but locked up until a bit of MLTT-insanity transpired (more on that later), but righted the ship with a resounding Sunday afternoon win against the Crocs, which was a matchup between the two 2-0 teams going in. Coming out of the weekend with 40 points in the bank was a result at the top end of expectations.
In Lundqvist, Coach Christian Lillieroos has a veteran player who exudes experience with every decision and every shot..watching Lundqvist play is watching a master craftsman at work. With Nördberg he has a dynamic power player with a dominant backhand style who can completely overwhelm opponents with his imposing attack. Newly-acquired Nikhil Kumar provides a perfect left-handed complement to Nordberg in the all-important doubles match, and it didn’t take Nikhil very long to post his initial defining moment with his new squad, closing out the Paddlers’ first Golden Game victory with a clutch point against his mentor Tao Wenzhang to book the 21-19 victory. And last but not least, Kotomi Omoda has already proven herself as a genius draft pick. From the moment that we saw her practicing, we knew she would overperform our expectations, and she did not disappoint with her infectious energy and high-energy two-winged attacking style. We’re complete head over heels for this young Japanese badass who posted a 6-3 record in singles over the course of her 3 matches, fighting like a bakemono and wearing her emotions on her green sleeves…count us in for #TeamKotomi, we are gonna be first in line to buy her jersey the moment it’s available from the new distributor of MLTT-branded gear, Portland’s own Paddle Palace!
Air Kotomi! Omoda captured the clinching point in the Sunday Golden Game versus the Crocs and her reaction was so pure and unadulterated exuberance. Can you say "Instant Media Darling?" Correction: she wears her emotions on her sleeveless sleeve!
Veteran defensive specialist Wang Wei with his unique short pips backhand chopping technique also provided plenty of spectacular moments, even though he drew some unfavorable matchups (something that Lillieroos will need to address going forward). Last but certainly not least, face of the franchise Jiwei Xia claimed one of the highlight moments of the weekend, the hometown crowd eating out of the palm of his hand while prevailing in a raucous doubles match with lovely wife and absolutely adorable young daughter in the stands. Daddy’s a winner!
Grade: A- Overall, a tremendous start for the Paddlers marred only by a historical comeback by Princeton in their Golden Game matchup which was calamitous, but only amounted to essentially a tie. Otherwise the team established themselves as a serious title contender. Final note: Wang Haochen was with the team but not on the active roster. Rumor has it that he may end up being a significant difference-maker when he gets his chance (presumably soon, as in Chicago October 4-6), which only supercharges Portland’s chances.
THE CROCS ROCKED
Bucket List Update Needed! Ultimate Golden Point in just his second ever MLTT appearance? No problem, you can stick a (pitch)fork in it! This is the look of a man who's living his best life and thoroughly enjoying himself.
Like the Paddlers, Florida was one of the teams which chose to largely remake its season one roster by only retaining four players: Daniel Gorak, Matilda Ekholm, Mark Duran and Daniel Gonzalez. In addition to Pitchford, we got to see the debuts of NJ’s finest Kaden Xu and Yuan-Wu Wu of Taiwan, both dynamic talents with high upside. The Crocs got off to a great start against a familiar nemesis in Princeton, dispatching them with aplomb in the Golden Game and exacting a bit of revenge for last season. On day 2 against Bay Area, they fought off three match points in the Golden Game culminating in this epic storybook moment for Pitchford:
Wow. Look…Liam Pitchford is just like you and me, ok? He puts his pants on one leg at a time…but when he’s done putting on his pants, he wins his first Ultimate Golden Point in only the 2nd Golden Game he’s ever played. And that, in the now-immortal words of Matt Hetherington, is “beyond the realms of absurdity.” There were several times over the weekend when we leaned over to the guy sitting next to us in the audience and practically giggled “can you believe we’re watching Liam Pitchford playing an MLTT match?!?” And as if on cue, Pitchford would come up with a bedazzling shot that would leave his opponent dumbfounded, as if thinking that famous Bobby Jones quote “he’s playing an entirely different game, and one which I’m not even familiar with.”
Lost in the hysteria of the post match celebration was the fact that it was Ekholm’s clutch play down 18-20 in the GG that set it all up, winning 2 pressure-packed points to give Pitchford the chance for glory. Ekholm came into the season knowing that she’d be up against a bevy of new, younger athletes, and moreover she would be thrust into the role of playing singles when she’d become more comfortable at this point in her career as a doubles specialist…but it’s quite evident that she’s put in the offseason work (training overseas, no doubt) as she acquitted herself admirably (and ferociously). Similarly, the Crocs got perhaps an unexpectedly outstanding throwback performance from veteran Spaniard Marc Duran, who played like a madman possessed, with a 7-2 record in singles plus a 12-9 record in the GG. Many windmills, both real and imagined, fell to Duran’s mighty lance this weekend.
Florida dropped its final tilt on Sunday against a fired-up Portland team. It’s never great to play against a hometown team that’s coming off a tough loss, so Florida can console itself for that loss with the thought that Portland definitely had all the mojo on their side.
Grade: A- The Crocs are certainly a very top-heavy team and so it remains to be seen if they can keep up this pace. They will need better performances out of Gorak (only 2-7 in singles, but a better-than-solid 14-10 in the GG), down the line, as well as from the silent but deadly duo of Xu/Wu. But for now, just a tremendous start for the new-look Crocs.
BLASTOFF! Bay Area got a twin-engine boost from Eric Jouti and free agent Guo Jiangshan.
BAY AREA SURVIVED AND ADVANCED
Going into Portland, rookie MLTT Coach Timothy Wang knew he had a tall task on his hands. Due to the vagaries of early season scheduling he would be without the services of not only top gun Ma Jinbao, but also both of his ladies, Lily Zhang and Kheith Cruz. That said, Bay Area’s talented roster runs so deep, he still came to town with a dangerous lineup with Kim Taehyun, Eric Jouti at the top spots, Tao Wenzhang (!) and Elsayed Lashin in the C/D position, and the very capable Guo Jiangshan with her grassy green backhand, filling in as their female player.
Perhaps dialing down expectations with this substitute-laden squad, Bay Area actually could have turned in a remarkable performance but for the cruelty known as the Golden Game, as they lost on Friday night to Portland 21-19, and then again on Saturday in even more heartbreaking fashion to Florida (in the aforementioned Pitchford Ultimate Golden point clip) 21-20. So essentially 3 measly points separated Bay Area’s 0-2 record from a perfect 2-0 start. They finally broke through on Sunday against a sluggish Princeton squad, perhaps a tad hungover from their Saturday win over Portland. Jouti got the ball rolling with a 3-0 whitewashing of Jishan Liang thanks to quality sleight-of-hand play like this:
Jouti's more well-known countryman Hugo has already staked claim to the obvious moniker of "The Thrill" but given what we've seen of Eric's more minimalist and elegant style of play, we're giving him the MLTT nickname "The Chill from Brazil"
Guo (known to her friends as “ShanShan”), playing as a free agent, was someone whom we had relatively high on our draft board so we thought she would’ve been on a regular team roster, given her level and status as a US player. So we weren’t exactly surprised by her command performance (5-4 in singles, 10-6 in GG) but admittedly our eyes were opened by her mental game: grit and determination to go along with that befuddling long pips backhand that she uses in a multitude of ways, plus an absolute banger of a forehand. There’s currently a forehand-to-forehand brain-melting exchange between her and Kotomi that’s going viral, but for our money we’re going with this one below, in which Guo displays the variety of backhand options she can deploy, before closing out the point with an I-Bow-To-No-One forehand:
MORE PLOT TWISTS THAN FIGHT CLUB! We're sorry but if watching this point with all of its twists and turns doesn't make you love the women's game, we don't even know what to do about you. We'll also be surprised if ShanShan doesn't find her way onto a roster before long, a la Senura Silva last season.
Kim Taehyun experienced some expected first weekend jitters, as he put a lot of pressure on himself to perform against the opponents’ top players with a couple of near miss performances until Sunday, in which he put it together for a solid 2-1 victory over Jinxin Wang, and was excellent in the all-important 2nd Golden Game rotation, taking 3 of 4 from Wang to essentially ice the match.
OLD TIMER, FIRST TIMER. While it was great to see fan favorite and grizzled veteran Lashin Elsayed get the final point for the Blasters' lone win of the weekend, it was even better seeing how the team celebrated rookie Coach Tim Wang's first MLTT victory.
Grade: B+ The Blasters certainly gave an A-worthy effort, but the two near misses in GG’s left them with just a 1-2 record for the weekend. Still, it was more than just a valiant effort as players old and new proved themselves on the MLTT stage and the tandem of Kim/Jouti look set to cause tons of damage all season long. When they get a couple of their missing big guns back…watch out!
RUN IT BACK. Last year's finalists, led by the steely-eyed Jishan Liang, ran into some troubles from the outset in an uneven first performance.
THE REVOLUTION RAN IN CIRCLES
Coming off a strategic draft in which only two new players were added to the team, the Revolution roster looks solid enough to make another run at the playoffs. Unfortunately Benedek Olah ran into some visa issues and was unable to make his debut, leaving the team shorthanded. Both Liang and Jinxin “The Professor” Wang stepped gamely into the breach but needing to play at their highest level to match the improved competition presented by the likes of Pitchford, Nordberg, Lundqvist, Kim and Jouti, unfortunately both were unable to muster their best. Newest team member Wei Wensheng, the highest female draftee, got off to a decent but slightly underwhelming start as she struggled with acclimating herself to the new format and pressure. She certainly held her own and showed flashes of what might see the rest of the season with plays like this:
CARRY ON, MY WEI-WARD CHILD! Wei never quite seemed to find her footing at her first MLTT event, but you could see what's in store for the future. This backhand was an absolute cracker.
A clear bright spot for the Revolution was the play of half-Chinese half-Japanese half-American wünderkind Koyo Kanamitsu. He started his 2nd season campaign by teaming up with Liang for a spectacular doubles win over Pitchford/Wu, thrilling the spectators with shots like this one:
His play was so stellar that Coach Mathias Habesohn likely felt compelled to promote him into the 3rd singles slot, where his rampage continued against Portland on Saturday with quick, off-the-bounce aggression like this (we chose the slow motion replay version of this play because our eyes couldn’t even follow the live action version…Koyo too fast!
It ended up being a strange uneven first weekend for Princeton, as they lost a close battle to Florida on Friday, and got blown out of the water by Bay Area on Sunday. But in between, they pulled off perhaps the greatest Golden Game comeback of all time…trailing 10-3 and looking for all the world like a team without answers, the Revs somehow surged to an remarkable, statistically improbable 18-3 run…in front of a hostile home crowd no less, to shock the Paddlers. Ievgen Pryschepa here with the finishing touch:
REVOLUTIONARY WARRIOR. Pryschepa with the steady hand, caps off a mind-boggling 18-3 run in the Golden Game to steal one away from the hometown Paddlers. Our statisticians are still reviewing video to confirm, but we suspect this is the most dominant 21-point streak in MLTT history.
Grade: C+ We might be accused of some harsh grading here, but fact of the matter is that outside of Kanamitsu, the other Revolutionaries didn’t rise to the occasion required for the new reality of elevated playing level in “The M.” Liang, Wang, Pryschepa and Wei all performed at or below their median, which is just not going to fly in season 2. The rousing win against hometown Portland was a major achievement, but in reality it only added up to a near-tie (11-9) and the team ended the weekend with a mere 25 points. Better than their disastrous 0-3 start last season, but not the result the team was expecting. The good news, however, is that it’s a quick 3 week turnaround before Princeton takes to the table again in Chicago (Oct 4-6), hopefully with Benedek Olah’s visa issues behind him.
The league barely takes a moment to catch its breath before the four other teams (Chicago, Carolina, Seattle and defending champions Texas) take to the table on Sept 20-22 in Raleigh, NC. As impressed as we were by the influx of new talent this past weekend, we are expecting the same level of absurdity when big names like Lebesson, Pistej, Vivarelli and Mo Zhang step into the spotlight…not to mention the Return of the King/Queen as season one MVPs Enzo Angles/Hong Lin play hostile hosts to the league’s second hot opening at Triangle Table Tennis Center. Check back soon for a quick preview article!
