OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS FROM SANTA CRUZ: Week 1 of the Western Division was the Best Kind of Emotional Roller Coaster
We like to call this pic “Nikhil Unleashed.” The youngest alpha in the league, Kumar embodies so much of what is great about Major League Table Tennis. What exactly do we mean? Read on….
September 25, 2023. Week 1 in the quest to be the best of the west has just concluded, and after taking about 24 hours for deep breathing and therapy, we feel ready to write about it. Like Daytona Beach the week before, Santa Cruz proved to be a wildly successful introduction for Major League Table Tennis. Again, we refuse to take away from the visceral experience of watching the top-notch MLTT production, so we aren’t offering any kind of deep dive into the results. Not only can you still re-watch the live feed of all three days of competition here, but now MLTT’s production team has begun posting single match videos here. If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and go watch it now. All of it. We’ll wait.
What a blast, right? Pun fully intended. Technically a home game for the Bay Area Blasters, the home team fans were in full force to support Coach Maggie Tian’s squad…even though in typical Californian fashion, there was quite a bit of grumbling about the drive down to shores of Santa Cruz.
Bay Area Blasters’ master penholder Tao Wenzhang seen here in action against Seattle Spinners’ world #37 Aditya Sareen. Tao took 2 of 3 from Sareen, but the resilient Oceania champion would get the final word, winning the deciding point of a lopsided Golden Game victory.
The home team put on a great show on Friday night, despite lacking the services of their #2 pick Ma Jinbao, and only getting one Friday night appearance from world #35 Lily Zhang. But Friday night is for fighting and Master Tao Wenzhang showed his quality by taking down Texas’ top man of the match David McBeath 3-0, during which it was reported that the majority owner of an unnamed eastern division team was heard muttering from the VIP seats “oh boy…he’s gonna be a PROBLEM.” Master Tao then relinquished center stage to the most anticipated match of the evening between Lily Zhang and Texas Smash’s Amy Wang, newly crowned Pan Am champion and world ranked #31.
In the historical matchup between the top two women in America, Lily Zhang sent a message taking a hard-fought 2-1 victory over her Team USA teammate. No doubt the first of several clashes between the top two women in the league.
Commissioner Flint Lane, steadfast in his support for the women’s sport, and who from the very beginning insisted that the MLTT would be a co-ed league, must have felt an upwelling of pride when this match became the obvious title bout of the evening. We know we did! It was clear from the online chatter that there’s definitely a #TeamLily versus a #TeamAmy, but also obvious that both of them (and Portland Paddlers’ Rachel Sung) are beloved by all US pongheads. Team USA and MLTT are both so damn lucky to have these exceptional and trailblazing athletes representing.
The Mighty Kou Lei has a mighty unreturnable serve. His service game wreaked havoc with opponents’ game plans all weekend long. If Master Tao is gonna be a problem, Kou Lei is gonna be The Death Star.
We’d be remiss if we did not highlight the dominance of an injured Kou Lei. He only played doubles on Friday, and actually didn’t look that great on a bum ankle. But on Saturday and Sunday, after receiving constant treatment from the Portland medical staff, he was clearly the best player in the west. We’re in love with the net cam which gives us closeups on the players’ serves like in the pic above, especially cause it gave us a good look at the devastating heavy spin that Kou Lei imparts on his serves. All weekend long, his serve dismantled his opponents’ intentions and rendered their strategies inert, as they constantly ate his serves or popped up returns for Kou Lei to obliterate. Coaches were coaching their players in vain because it was just impossible for them to execute anything consistently. As Mike Tyson once said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
16-year old Nandan Naresh capturing our hearts in a brief moment that possibly no one else noticed.
All the players conducted themselves with total class, but there was one fleeting moment in particular that really hit home with us, and in the process made us Nandan Naresh fans for life. Down 9-10 in the 3rd to 2-time reigning national champion Nikhil Kumar, in what was hands-down the best match of the the entire weekend (if you do nothing else, please do yourself a favor and go watch this match - Day 3, Seattle vs Texas…if you feel yourself getting lightheaded, breathe deeply into a paper bag like we did), Naresh makes a semi-desperate weak return off a perfectly executed 3rd ball attack by Nikhil and gets a lucky edge ball to tie it at 10-10 and force a golden point. Now yes, we all say sorry when we get a lucky edge or net, but camaaan just admit it, it’s like sorry not sorry most of the time and especially when it’s a critical point. With the spotlight on him, his teammates and fans screaming…with his adrenaline surging and with victory just one point away...Naresh was honestly, unabashedly, SORRY. He said it twice. The second time he did, he waited to make direct eye contact with Nikhil and then this was the expression on his face. You look in the dictionary for the definition of the word “empathy” and this is what you’re gonna see. This level of maturity and class from a 16 year old makes us think back to when we were Nandan’s age and…hang our heads in shame. Kudos to this kid, and kudos to his parents who are apparently doing a good job and raising a champion in the game of life.
Returning to Nikhil now, after he won the final point to secure the 2-1 victory over Nandan, he unleashed what can only be described as a THIS IS SPARTA! war cry. In addition to Kou Lei and Tao Wenzhang, Nikhil distinguished himself as an alpha #1 in this league. His play comes closest to exemplifying that old table tennis adage that it’s like running the 100M dash while playing chess. He obviously comes with the reputation of being an analytical player (coaches have said that he’ll often provide his own analysis between games), but watching all the speed, firepower and high energy level, combined with the on-the-fly analysis and problem solving…it’s a fine combination of characteristics in a player. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s hungry to improve. We like to think of Nikhil the player as representative of what MLTT hopes to be. Young and maybe a bit brash but equal parts action and analysis, looking to get a little bit better each day, self-reflective but decisive in action…already impressive but unsatisfied and possessing unlimited potential.
Power backhands like this one gave Jonatan McDonald the Majorponghead Upset of the Week Award
The Portland Paddlers, in their Sunday afternoon dismantling of an already-depleted Bay Area Blasters, front loaded the matchups, expecting to jump out to a big lead and then hoping to hang on for dear life coming down the stretch. Instead, their #4 pick Jonatan McDonald (former Swedish U-21 champion) turned in what was the most eye-opening performance in his 3-0 master class in how to neutralize a penholder by controlling the action with two-winged attacks against the heavily favored Tao Wenzhang. McDonald was brilliant and relentless, silencing the home crowd into a state of semi-shock. He wins the inaugural Majorponghead UPSET of the WEEK Award sponsored by…umm…whichever internet Karen is currently going viral for being irrationally upset.
Time for us to EAT CROW! Coach Christian Lillieroos of the first place Portland Paddlers lets us have it during his interview with Evan Lepler.
We picked them to finish 3rd or 4th this weekend, but they went from worst to first! Congratulations to the coach and his amazing players. And you’re welcome for the locker room bulletin board material….this first one was free, you need to pay for it in the future. When we in the Majorponghead staff break room (where we live stream all MLTT matches on the nice 100” TV set we have in there) heard interviewer Evan Lepler ask the question about “some prognosticators out there picking Portland to finish last” our first reaction was to yell “Objection your honor! Leading the witness!” The second reaction among our team was a kind of group dread that the coach was gonna lay into us. But to his credit, it was a really good natured ribbing that, let’s be honest, we totally deserved…much like all the Croc chomps we got last week. But I suppose everything is awesome when you’re wearing golden game colored glasses. Show us more dance moves, Coach!
Darryl Tsao - the look of redemption. From Golden Game loss of 19-21 on Friday night, to winning in dramatic fashion 21-19 on Saturday night, it was a roller coaster of epic proportions for Tsao and his Texas Smash teammates.
Our final observation. With so many amazing moments during this inaugural Western Division event, this one remains our favorite. We wrote about this moment in the earlier article so we’re not gonna rehash it fully here (SKIP RECAP button pressed), but for us, this represented the duality of sport, the cruelty and glory of it all wrapped into one young player, Darryl Tsao. Did this kid get any sleep this weekend? No doubt he totally konked out on the plane ride home, and if his weekend was made into a Netflix episode, Darryl fast asleep during takeoff…his head against the airplane window with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background fading beneath the clouds, end credits roll…next episode drops in a month, destination Houston, Texas.
There's still over 85% of the regular season to go, but stats are fun so here are the overall standings in both divisions after week 1. Next stop on the tour will be the East Division week 2, October 13-15 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Tickets will be on sale soon at MLTT’s ticket page.
