Packed Crowds Jam the Arena as Western Division Teams Clash; Bay Area Soars then Succumbs to MLTT Hometown Curse while Dark Horse Seattle Dominates
For a brief, shining moment it was pure joy for the hometown Blasters, as they beat the MLTT hometown curse, pulled out a stunning Golden Game victory on Friday night against Portland in front of a packed house of cheering, adoring Bay Area fans…but like their celebratory scrum, it would soon fall apart and collapse (how’s that for a cliffhanger?). Still, it was one of the best moments of the season…and only one of TWO Ultimate Golden Game Points on Friday.
November 20, 2023. The split-second that Jiwei Xia’s power loop found the net at 20-20 in the Golden Game between Portland and Bay Area in the primetime slot on Friday night, all seemed right in the world as the crowd absolutely erupted and Tao Wenzhang and his teammates exploded into paroxysms of joy. Tao actually displayed some impressive hops as his vertical was later measured at 30” or, as Bay Area sports fans will all know, slightly higher than that of Steph Curry. Hometown favorite Lily Zhang (who must have been responsible for approximately half of all ticket sales this weekend) gave her hordes of supporters something to smile about with her clutch 3-1 GG performance over Tyrese Knight, offering her team the chance for the improbable win. Earlier, she had absolutely dominated Jonatan McDonald in their “mixed singles” matchup, 3-0. During the postgame interview with the stellar team of Matt Hetherington (play by play) and Sean O’Neill (color), she was asked what it meant for her to so convincingly defeat her male opponent in front of so many youth table tennis players, and her answer was, as usual, exceptional and inspirational: “It means a lot to me that the young girls here can see that we’re as good as men. Or better.”
Unfortunately it would not be a fairy tale ending for Lily and the Blasters, as they would bizarrely fall victim to MLTT’s home team curse AFTER this initial win, and drop both contests over the weekend. In a cruel twist of fate, it was actually during their delirious victory celebration on Friday night that The Curse would descend upon them, as veteran Oriol Monzo would suffer a broken finger in a freak accident at the bottom of the celebratory pile-on. But more on that later, we need to stop burying the lede…which is the spectacular performance of the Seattle Spinners.
Seattle’s MVP Olajide Omaotayo gave his team huge performances in all three team matches. He edged out teammate Nikhil Kumar for the top honors due to his 5-3 singles and 6-3 doubles record, plus a solid 11-11 in GG points.
Seattle Spinners Grade: A+ (3-0 match record). Coach Luba Sadovska’s squad had themselves a dream weekend, one that left the other 3 teams sleepless. Despite missing the services of their wünderkind Aditya Sareen, they rode the hot hand of Olajide Omaotayo and Golden Game clutch performances by Nikhil Kumar to a spotless 3-0 record. Add a pressure cooker moment by Fabiola Diaz on Friday night, winning an Ultimate Golden Game Point to give the Spinners a big momentum swing to start off their weekend…then throw in a healthy helping of a surging Andrew Cao, who has now firmly established himself at the top of the class of the younger generation players of MLTT…plus a little luck in drawing a shorthanded Bay Area team on Sunday due to the aforementioned freak injury to Monzo, and you have all the pieces falling into place for an epic three-win weekend. Ondrej Lapcik had a tough first two days, but on Sunday he scrapped and provided valuable points. And last but certainly not least, Johan Hagberg had himself a memorable three days to say the least. Severely turning his ankle on Friday against Nandan Naresh, he was able to grit his teeth and play through the pain and make huge contributions to his team, most notably his roaring 2-1 singles win over Lily Zhang.
Johan Hagberg is the #1 ranked undisputed postgame interview champion of the entire MLTT. Hagberg’s interview skills are elite and unmatched…we could listen to him talk for hours. The wit, the humor, the insight…how is English not this guy’s first language? Puts us native speakers to shame. Other players need to put in the work and study his film, the man is a master of his craft. Everyone follow him on Instagram and like everything he posts. Fingers crossed that we get many more Hagberg interviews the 2nd half of the season.
Texas Smash Grade: A- (2-1 match record). We will confess that we were all set on giving Texas a straight A for their performance, which was just one crazy hometown Bay Area comeback and 21-20 Golden Game loss away from a perfect 3-0 weekend. But one look at Coach Jorg Bitzigeio’s stern countenance, and our knees went a bit wobbly with the knowledge that by his standards, even a point away from a perfect record is not the same thing as a perfect record. That said, Coach Bitzigeio engineered a brilliant turnaround following last month’s disaster in Katy. David McBeath was up and down all weekend, but when he was up he was way up, slamming Ma Jinbao 3-0 in Majorponghead’s Upset of the Week and then going 7-1 in the subsequent GG to lead his team to victory on Saturday against Bay Area. On Sunday, he took it on the chin 3-0 from Kou Lei, but Texas got great performances out of Hiromitsu Kasahara and Nandan Naresh to turn the tables on Coach Christian Lillieroos’ Portland squad, snatching a close victory from the Dance of Da Feet.
Kasahara was Texas’ MVP this weekend. He was without exception 100% locked in, winning all three of his singles matches (6-3 overall record) and posted a 13-10 record in the Golden Games.
We’ve said it several times in the past, we here at Majorponghead don’t have much interest in doing a standard review of all the results from a given weekend, instead we like to find and point out those poignant and meaningful moments that might otherwise escape notice. On Friday night, Texas’ Amy Wang walked onto a raucous center court with the Golden Game tied 20-20 with a chance to give her team a win. A win that the Smash needed like a dying man in the desert needed a Gatorade. She matched up against Seattle’s Fabiola Diaz, whom she had just Golden Swept in their previous encounter a few minutes earlier. We know what happened of course, but what the cameras didn’t capture was the normally stoic Wang quietly shedding tears after the loss. Such is the pressure involved in team sports and MLTT’s unique showdown known as the Golden Game…even coming off of a major career achievement in winning the Pan American Games, Amy was absolutely crushed by this. Players have all discussed how the Golden Game can be both a ring of glory and a cruel torture device, and here we most improbably got to see it encapsulated in a single player’s journey within a single weekend. After dropping that crushing GG point on Friday, Wang found herself right back in the same situation on both Saturday AND Sunday. On Saturday, in a moment up there with Ojo Onaolapo’s winner off of Sasha Khanin’s serve, Amy Wang stunned the home crowd by going toe-to-toe with none other than Ma Jinbao, winning the final point with a clean winner against America’s top ranked male player to give Texas the 21-19/13-8 win. Then on Sunday, she found herself pitted against friend, fellow US national team member and college roommate Rachel Sung, where she again won (21-19/12-9) to give Texas its 2nd victory of the weekend. Rising from the ashes of defeat, not just redemption but double redemption. Seriously folks, this stuff sounds scripted out of an old Hong Kong kung-fu movie, but it’s not.
Amy Wang set an MLTT record by playing the final Golden Point 3x in one weekend. After a crushing defeat on day 1, she rose from the ashes with two incredible winning points on days 2 and 3. That’s why this week at Majorponghead offices, we are calling her THE GOLDEN PHOENIX.
Bay Area Blasters Grade: B (record 1-2). So it turns out (major unexpected plot twist) that the Death Star had a hidden weakness, lol. Many Bothans died to bring us this information. After a fairy tale start to the weekend, Coach Maggie Tian’s team fell victim yet again to the now-dreaded MLTT hometown curse. A gut-wrenching 21-19 GG loss to Texas on Saturday despite Lily Zhang’s heroics in defeating yet another male player (this time it was Texas’ Yoan Rebetez) and Senura Silva’s 3-0 sweep of Amy Wang.
Champion. Role model. Fan favorite. Pioneer. Citizen of the World. The incomparable Lily Zhang has heard all the accolades. Now add MLTT team MVP to that list. She compiled an impressive 6-3 singles record, facing only male competitors and beating 2 of 3 this weekend. She also turned in the most important Golden Game performance for Bay Area this weekend, winning 3 of 4 against Tyrese Knight to bring her team back from the brink and put them in position for the W in front of the hometown crowd and her own personal cheering section.
The Bay Area top guns both struggled in singles, with both Tao Wenzhang and Ma Jinbao (MJB) dropping their singles matches against Texas. MJB rebounded with a solid 2-1 win against Kumar on Sunday, but Tao dropped a surprising 2-1 decision to Omotayo. MJB, perhaps not surprisingly, seemed to suffer the same fate that many other players have had in their MLTT debuts in acclimating to the shorter games and sudden death outcomes. Without the ability to play your way into form in the longer best-of-5 or best-of-7 match format, MJB certainly didn’t live up to his billing and we would surmise if he was asked, would confirm he didn’t play to his true ability. The problems snowballed on Sunday, as it was revealed Oriol Monzo’s injury would prevent him from playing, and while an emergency free agent in MLTT’s Tapabrota “Tapa” Day gave Bay Area a non-forfeit alternative, it also gave Seattle a distinct advantage in his matchups despite spirited support from his MLTT comrades.
Tapa’s fellow MLTT colleagues Jordan Yee and Ryan Day show their support for their buddy-turned-pro-for-a-day. The situation reminded us of when the Zamboni driver or team trainer in the NHL is called into emergency action as an NHL goalie and stands on his head.
After doing well to pick a game (and a team point) off of Olajide/Diaz in doubles, Tapa’s own fairytale hit the brick wall of reality in the Golden Game as he was handled easily by Diaz by a combined 7-1. But let’s all remember that one team point he helped pick up in doubles, in case the Bay Area Blasters end up making the playoffs by virtue of one point, he will have made a seismic contribution and will go down in the annals of MLTT history as a freaking LEGEND. We know that we’re gonna be asking Tapa for his autograph in Rock Hill, SC, the next tour stop.
A somewhat meh performance when compared to his own lofty standards, the Mighty Kou Lei posted a 7-2 record in singles, 6-3 in doubles, but just 9-14 in the Golden Game. Still, in a tough 0-3 weekend in which none of his teammates brought their A game either, it was more than good enough for Portland’s team MVP award.
(please note Tapa Day in background, working at his day job)
Portland Paddlers Grade: D (Record: 0-3). Nobody saw this one coming. With their full lineup and a faltering (hometown cursed) Bay Area home team, this weekend should have been a huge opportunity for Coach Christian Lillieroos to bank points and do some pre-interview dancing. But lackluster results by Jiwei Xia despite his battling and fighting for every single point (3-6 in singles, losing all 3 matches and 11-12 in the GG) and uneven performances by Jonatan McDonald, Tyrese Knight and Daniel Tran would leave them just short against Bay Area, blown out by Seattle, and then just short again versus Seattle. Even though they didn’t play up to their usual level, this Portland team is so talented that when you step back and look at it, they were just 3 crucial GG points from going 2-1…but as the players say, that’s the Golden Game. It’s unbelievably unforgiving, and just a couple lucky points for or against you can be the difference between a successful vs disastrous weekend. Rachel Sung, to her credit, quietly more than held her own in both doubles (6-3) and the Golden Game (10-10), but it wasn’t enough to get them over the finish line.
Still, it’s hardly the end of the world for the Paddlers. Even after this most forgettable of weekends they find themselves falling from 1st to 3rd place, but only 9 points off the lead…which is a very manageable deficit. Seattle conversely leapfrogs from 3rd to 1st, while Bay Area holds onto the 2nd spot. And in a testament to how close the Western Division race is, 4th place Texas is only 20 points from the lead and 15 points from a playoff spot. And there’s a lot of season left.
The next stop on the tour is the highly-anticipated Crossover Event, in which all 8 teams will meet in Rock Hill, South Carolina from December 1-3, with Western Division teams only playing Eastern Division teams (and vice versa, obviously). We literally cannot wait to see all the new matchups with two tables of action going on at the same time. There’s been word that Matt and Sean will be handling the commentary for one table, while the other table will offer “The Adam Commentary” with Adam Bobrow commentating solo! Tickets are already on sale now for what promises to be an epic event.
We’ll be back sometime after Thanksgiving with a Rosters Reveal/preview article. Until then, keep watching the MLTT Youtube channel videos and keep pongin’, Pongheads!
