Week 2 Eastern Division Action in Myrtle Beach: A Madcap Recap

**A sneak peek from inside the arena on Thursday night when some of the early arriving players were giving the main table a test run.**

October 17, 2023. Seriously, MLTT? Are we supposed to get used to having multiple coronary events every weekend of play? It’s been over 24 hours since the conclusion of competition from the 2nd week of Eastern Division play in Myrtle Beach, but the emotions have yet to fade from witnessing so many high drama moments and non-stop rip-roaring action. Players are really laying it all out on the line, and from a spectator’s perspective this brand of table tennis could not be more exciting. Again, like with our Week 1 articles, we are not going to do you and the league the disservice of slogging through a game-by-game recap. Instead, we’ll focus on some of the big, powerful moments as well as a few small, under the radar poignant moments we noticed. Spoiler alert, this article will mention match results and final team point totals, so prior to reading it you may want to witness the action yourself on MLTT’s Youtube channel. And at the time of publishing this article, the MLTT has just released its Top 10 Highlights from Myrtle Beach video, which you can watch here. While it’s still very early in this inaugural first season, it’s going to be pretty impossible to top this week’s #1 highlight for the Top Play of the Year award, cause it’s absolutely mind-boggling. Trust us.

Here we go with a madcap recap of this past weekend’s performances, with a team-by-team synopsis ordered from least to BEAST.

**Perhaps the most animated we’ve ever seen Damien Provost and we love it. His bigtime birthday performance against friend and compatriot Enzo Angles has now become the stuff of MLTT legend!**

Chicago Wind: 1-2 record, 29pts, Grade: B

Coach Eric Owens’ Chicago Wind squad seemed poised for a jetstream of a weekend after looking at the Princeton Revolution’s revamped lineup and summarily blowing them away on Friday night. But then they themselves ran into some tough Golden Game luck over the weekend to drop 2 of 3 matches, including a 21-20 Golden Game loss to Florida in the league’s first-ever Golden Game Golden Point, in which Sasha Khanin’s daring long serve was countered brilliantly by Ojo Onaolapo’s step around down the line forehand winner that was so filled with drama, it was pure theater. No backing down by either player. Sasha made the ballsy decision to go for it, and he freaking executed…but Ojo showed his quality as well, and countered with force and a steady hand. This moment perfectly encapsulated the glory and the agony that is the Golden Game, a winner-take-all emotional grind house for the players, but most importantly it was an amazing, amazing moment to experience as a fan.

Despite the weekend disappointments, there were a number of real positives for Chicago. First and foremost, birthday boy Damien Provost gave his team quite a present on his special day, with masterful and (uncharacteristically, for him) emotionally fired up performance against Enzo Alles, an inspiring 2-1 win over the #1 draft pick. Provost is normally so relaxed and casual, it can sometimes appear to the untrained eye that he’s almost uninterested. Not so on his birthday, apparently! After his close win in game 2, he was so animated even talking to his coach that there was almost a look of amazed bemusement on the faces of his teammates. Just fantastic to see. Equally cool was later that evening when Enzo posted a “Happy Birthday Damien, I’m proud of you bro” IG image similar to the image above, showing the score after two games and conveniently leaving out the score of the third, which Enzo won. Yeah, Enzo…we see you. Now if that isn’t the definition of modern day social media edited brotherly love, we don’t know what is!

**Daniele Pinto…sighhhhh. We call this look “The Double Espresso Smoldering.” And it is OK to admit that you felt it move.**

The second highlight of Chicago’s weekend was the ascendant play of Danielle Pinto. Don’t let the matinee idol looks fool you, this guy is totally driven. All professional athletes work hard, but for the most part during competitions there is also a focus on rest and recovery. Not for Pinto, he was in the hotel fitness center each morning at 8am sharp doing his best Kobe Bryant impression. Here are his weekend numbers, in aggregate: a perfect 6-0 in singles and perhaps and even more impressive 8-4 in the GG. Chicago’s depth is proving to be its strong suit. Along with the rousing veteran play of Alexandra Cazacu, whose trademark celebrations are becoming a crowd favorite (the man just exudes happy warrior vibes), and up-and-coming Emily Tan, whose unflinchingly no-backing-down style of play in doubles has been impressive, look for the Chicago Wind to use this weekend’s disappointments as fuel for a big turnaround hometown performance on November 10-12 when the tour makes a stop (tickets on sale now!) at Chicago’s Wintrust Arena.

Princeton Revolution: 1-2 record, 30pts, Grade: B

For the better part of 2 hours on Sunday afternoon, it looked like Coach Mathias Habesohn’s squad was going to get the breakout result it so desperately needs to get back into the playoff race. Ok maybe “desperately” is overcooking it a bit, since we have 5 more weekends of competition left in the regular season. But Princeton was this close to making a statement win over Carolina and exorcising its early season demons, when yet again the brutality potential of the Golden Game came back to haunt them, as they let a 5-0 lead evaporate, eventually losing a heartbreaking 21-19 to Carolina. Lest anyone thinks the drama of MLTT’s Golden Game drama is manufactured a la WWF, there were some real raw emotions on display after Princeton let victory slip away. Angela Guan was literally reduced to tears after being completely shut out in the GG, which was really difficult and heartbreaking to watch…but it was also great seeing her teammates, coach and even team owners come to her side, surrounding her with support. A bit more humorously, broadcasters Sean O’Neill and Evan Lepler both noticed the victorious and giddy Hong Lin looking exactly like Jim Valvano after NC State’s NCAA finals victory over Houston, running around and searching for her husband Jishan Liang for a post-match hug..she eventually found him but he was having none of that! Awkward 4 hour drive back to North Carolina afterwards?

After looking a bit unprepared to handle the smoke against the Chicago Wind on Friday evening, the Revolution came roaring back to life on Saturday, with their first victory of the season (and a statement win at that), taking down the previously undefeated Florida Crocs. The new doubles pairing of Angela Guan with lefty powerhouse Jishan Liang still needs some seasoning, but early returns are positive as they managed to win a few games over the weekend and were just a point or two away from beating both Gorak/Ekholm and Enzo/Lin outright. Mathieu DeSaintilan and Ievgen Pryschepa played at their usual consistent high level. Jinxin “The Professor” Wang was light years better than his week 1 version…perhaps still not quite up to his expectations but let’s just say Myrtle Beach Professor > Daytona Beach Professor. But most importantly for the future, you can see how the best roster of the Revolution should be able to match up favorably against any team in the MLTT. Liang provides a hyper aggressive swing-for-the-fences (it seems literally, sometimes) style that can be intimidating as even the slightest mistake in over-the-table play can result in major emotional damage. He didn’t win this point because, well, Enzo…but just look at the barrage of forehands, my goodness:

Equally exciting for Revolution fans was the debut of Koyo Kanamitsu, an enigmatic player from Japan who barely looked like he belonged on Friday, got relegated to the bench on Saturday, then came out and performed absolutely brilliantly on Sunday…Kanamitsu completely dismantled the Great Northern Wall of Canada, Jeremy Hazin 3-0 in singles, and also proceeded to post a 7-1 record in the GG (only losing a point due to an unlucky net ball). So check out his Friday vs Sunday splits:

Friday (vs Daniele Pinto): 0-3 in singles, 1-3 in GG

Sunday (vs Jeremy Hazin): 3-0 in singles, 7-1 in GG

Talk about getting your sea legs! This guy might prove to be a problem in the east, check out his beautiful, smooth compact style, and the unexpected power he generates:

Ok so we here at Majorponghead have something to disclose, and that is our college interns are all infatuated with Kanamitsu. Yes, there is a full-blown outbreak of Koyo Fever here, and apparently there is no known cure for it. One intern, majoring in English Literature and minoring in Japanese Studies went even so far as to craft a haiku in his honor:

ping-pong. when I watch

koyo kanamitsu, I

am very happy

Carolina Gold Rush’s Hong Lin had plenty to smile about after her incredible performance this weekend. As this weekend’s top Golden Game closer, she’s holding an unbeatable hand so we are giving her a new nickname. Read on.

Carolina Gold Rush: 2-1 record, 36 points, Grade: B+

We’re giving 2nd place honors to the Carolina Gold Rush. Despite coming to Myrtle Beach without the services of their #3 guy Bastien Dupont (and 8th round draft pick Petar Kostovsk of North Macedonia taking his place), and despite stumbling out the gate with a 15-6 shellacking at the hands of the the Florida Crocs on Friday night, they flipped the script on what could have been a disastrous weekend and instead put up two fantastic performances over the weekend to come out of week 2 in great position. They had a raucous, dramatic win over Chicago on Saturday, and then an insane comeback victory over Princeton on Sunday. Enzo Angles was his usual dominant self, notching the first singles victory over Daniel Gorak this season (2-1). The man has but one gear, and it’s just super impressive how he almost never falters. The big story this weekend, however, has to be Hong Lin. She won the match clinching Golden Game points under pressure versus both Chicago and Princeton. In the Princeton match’s Golden Game, she was tactically sublime and not merely near-perfect in execution…she was 100% perfect. As in a perfect 8-0, almost single-handedly bringing her team back from the 0-5 deficit they started off with…something perhaps not as obvious but certainly just as important is how she talked her teammate Enzo off the ledge when he went into near meltdown mode after a simply unnecessary umpire’s service fault call (classic example of officiating overreach…can we let the players actually decide the outcome of the match, would that be F%&$*ing OK?) at a crucial moment in their doubles match against Princeton. Enzo was seriously raging mad, and with good reason..but of course it was not going to help things. Her calm quiet words just between the two of them were so effective, you could almost see Enzo’s BPM and breathing immediately slow down as he returned to his senses and quickly got his game face back on. So rather than melting down, Enzo proceeded to ratchet up his level of play and gave them the crucial 3rd game of that match, which would later prove to be the margin of their 11-10 victory. It was such a stark lesson in how the off the table things can be just as valuable as the actual playing, and what Hong Lin did for Enzo and the Carolina team was one of the most emotionally intelligent and valuable things we’ve seen happen in this sport. MLTT Master of Ceremonies and Voice of Table Tennis Adam Bobrow immediately picked up on this interaction and made it a point to highlight it for the spectators, it was that remarkable. So while China’s Ding Ning has been crowned “The Queen of Hearts,” we are hereby claiming an even more valuable nickname for Hong Lin: The Queen of Diamonds (方塊皇后)! So add the world’s most coveted gemstone to Carolina’s Fort Knox-like supply of gold, and their vaults are overflowing with riches two weekends into the season. Diamonds are forever, and lucky for us it seems like Hong Lin will be posting remarkable performances like this one for a long, long time.

A couple final notes about Carolina. In their win against Chicago, Romain Lorentz and Kai Zhang both stepped up huge and defeated their favored opponents (Sasha Khanin and Alexandra Cazaku, respectively). But it was the trials and tribulations of substitute player Petar Kostovsk which once again proved that within the Golden Game lies the opportunity for redemption. After getting drubbed by the sensational Daniele Pinto 3-0 (and it wasn’t even that close) in singles, and also 3-1 in the first round of the Golden Game, it looked like Carolina was on the ropes and Kostovsk would certainly be the goat in the impending loss. But he dug down into the deepest part of his mental and emotional reserves and played two absolutely amazing points to split 2-2 with Pinto in their 2nd encounter. SO clutch. His heroics sent his fans (several who had come from a long distance to cheer for him) into paroxysms of joy and buoyed the spirits of his team, setting the stage for a big performance by Kai Zhang before The Queen of Diamonds stepped onto center stage for the clincher. Watching the ebb and flow of that Golden Game, it was crystal clear how Kostovsk’s 2-point last stand performance was the catalyst for Carolina’s gutsy victory. It was just 2 points, but under the ultra bright spotlight of the Golden Game where the importance of every single point is heightened to an almost excruciating level, those two points were everything. His teammates and coach knew it too, as in the postgame celebrations the hugs and high fives he received were delivered with an extra helping of gusto. North Macedonia should be proud!

Crocs-ky needs his own social media accounts, because he is already an internet sensation. We are hoping he has no blood relation to Russian revolutionary figure Leon Trotsky, in which case MLTT’s first full-blown scandal would erupt and Coach Frank Arias will wish he had just gone with the simple and more obvious “Chomp-y”

Florida Crocs: Record 2-1, 36 points, A-

The chomp get chompier! Top honors for Myrtle Beach weekend go to the Eastern Division leading Florida Crocs, though it wasn’t the unbelievably perfect weekend they put together at Daytona in September. Still, they banked the most points of any team and when you’re in first place AND you notch the most points…we’re not great in math but that seems to be a winning formula to us. They suffered their first loss of the season to a Princeton Revolution team that’s starting to show some signs of life, but then sandwiched around that Saturday loss they posted a solid victory against closest rival Carolina, and an absolute barn burner win (21-20 in the Golden Game) against Chicago. A part of the formula to Florida’s early season success has been the production they’ve received from the quote-unquote bottom of their roster, with both Benjamin Brossier and especially Ono Onaolapo performing so well in the C and D slots. Do yourself a huge favor and go watch Brossier’s entire match against his countryman Mathieu DeSaintilan of Princeton. It’s our pick for the most entertaining match of the season so far, with so many long, improbable rallies resulting from their familiarity with each other’s styles. DeSaintilan’s game was on point, but Brossier locked into his spin and each point was a titanic struggle for supremacy. There were fans in the stands witnessing professional table tennis for the first time, and to say their minds were blown would be an understatement. The autograph seekers after the match were all grouped around the two Frenchmen. And Ojo for his part continues to be one of the winningest and most effective players in the Golden Game. His history-making winner in MLTT’s first ever Golden Game Golden Point was a breathtaking example of fortune favoring the bold, and Ojo is certainly bold. Playing with a chip on his shoulder, he still harbors some resentment at being picked so late in the draft (he was the 50th overall pick) and is on a mission to prove to everyone they made a mistake in passing him up. We’d say that so far, his message has been received loud and clear.

Perhaps a couple cracks in their previously impenetrable scaly armor, but really it’s only because they set such a high standard themselves in week 1. Top gun Daniel Gorak didn’t have the weekend he envisioned, losing 1-2 to Enzo Angles and pulling off a wild comeback from down 10-4 to Jinxin Wang to barely secure the 2-1 win (he also defeated Sasha Khanin of Chicago 2-1). He wasn’t his dominant self in the Golden Game either, going a combined 9-14 against Damien Provost, Enzo and Wang (who actually schooled him 5-2). But something tells us that this is most likely an outlier, and the veteran will be back better than ever.

One final comment about Florida’s weekend. Myrtle Beach marked the debut of MLTT player embassador Daniel Gonzalez, and more importantly, his unbelievable shoulders. Whoooo boy, the weather was great in South Carolina all weekend and for Gonzalez it was definitely sun’s out, guns out! Many of the international players were either amused or a bit nonplussed about the gun laws of South Carolina and the signs on all the entrance doors which stated “No Concealable Weapons Allowed.” Not Gonzalez. Cause there was no concealing his weapons. Take a look.

Boom Boom make some room, Crocs-ky! Daniel Gonzalez’s shoulders quickly became the Florida Crocs’ second viral internet sensation of the weekend. Apologies for the fuzzy photo here, but the MLTT netcam just doesn’t have the wide angle lens needed to capture the glory of Gonzo’s twin howitzers.

So now we have our fourth and final new nickname coronation of this article. Carolina’s Hong “Queen of Diamonds” Lin, Jeremy “Great Northern Wall of China” Hazin, and Daniele “The Smoldering” Pinto will be officially joined by Florida’s Daniel GUNS-alez! Let’s leave it at that, then shall we? See you all in Houston, TX in less than two weeks for the Western Division week 2 of play. CAN’T WAIT.

Keep ponging, Pongheads!

ROSTERS REVEALED FOR WESTERN DIVISION WEEK 2 TEXAS SHOWDOWN

With Myrtle Beach Looming…MLTT Grab Bag!