WTT Popularity Contest!
September 10, 2023. It was a slow Sunday night at Majorponghead headquarters, and so in between cans of IPAs we found ourselves surfing over to the WTT website. After the staff re-watched the Hina Hayata/Linda Bergstrom WTT Contender Rio De Janiero finals, someone noticed there was a new tab on the nav bar…”PLAYERS.”
Whaaaaaaaaat?
Let’s just say some articles on this site are meant to be serious reporting on the MLTT, and others arise from a combination of Happy Hour drinks + being terminally online.
So put your drink down and raise your hand if you knew that the WTT was conducting a real time popularity contest of its ranked players! Yes, there’s literally a ranked list of the men, and a separate list of the women, ranked by how many “likes” they’ve received on that page from fans. Here’s a pic of the Top 10 men as of Sunday night.
Not surprisingly, The Goat Ma Long is currently #1 with FZD not far behind. Also no surprise that fan favorite #4 Timo Boll punches way above his current world ranking weight class when it comes to popularity (if you don’t like Timo Boll, it means you are a horrible person), followed by the Thrill from Brazil Hugo Calderano. Now let’s take a quick look at the current listing of the Top 10 most popular women.
No huge surprises here, as the Chinese fans have stuffed the ballot boxes, and deservedly so, for their players…although it’s interesting to note the big lead by Little Monster Sun Yingsha over her teammates. Pretty cool that Adriana Diaz, Bernadette Szocs and Dancing Queen Miwa Harimoto all land into the Top 10, and just out of the top 10 at #11 is TT social media queen Bruna Takahashi.
It didn’t take long for the devious collective hive mind of the Majorponghead staff to conclude that we should go through both lists and heart all the MLTT players plus “MLTT adjacent” players (siblings of MLTT players). Then of course someone suggested/insisted that we should push out an article encouraging our readers to do the same…and thus, an article concept was born. We instantly loved this idea since it aligns perfectly with the values and mission statement of our humble little site, to glow up the MLTT and all of its amazing players!
CALLING ON THE MAJORPONGHEAD ARMY! Everyone go to the WTT website’s Player List click on the men’s list and then the women’s list. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to click on the heart emoji for all of the MLTT and MLTT-adjacent players! Note that you must have a WTT account to do so, but it only takes a minute to set up. For your hearting convenience, we have published a list of the MLTT players that you need to like, and their popularity ranking as of Sunday night:
MEN
#63 Enzo Angles, Carolina Gold Rush (#237 world ranking)
#90 Daniel Habesohn, MLTT Adjacent (#68 world ranking, and brother of Princeton Revolution coach Mathias)
#120 Daniel Gonzalez, Florida Crocs (#135 world ranking)
#176 Aditya Sareen, Seattle Spinners (#241 world ranking but not for long!)
#185 Ievgen Pryschepa, Princeton Revolution (#320 world ranking)
#215 Daniele Pinto, Chicago Wind (#227 world ranking)
#217 Olajide Omatayo, Seattle Spinners (#143 world ranking)
#220 Jishan Liang, Princeton Revolution (#160 world ranking)
#224 Alexandru Cazaku, Chicago Wind (#301 world ranking)
#239 Edward Ly, Princeton Revolution (#263 world ranking)
#251 Ma Jinbao, Bay Area Blasters (#307 world ranking)
#258 Salim Karam, Portland Paddlers (#226 world ranking)
#283 Sid Naresh, MLTT Adjacent (#303 world ranking and brother of Nandan)
#314 Nandan Naresh, Texas Smash (#364 world ranking)
#316 Brian Mena, Florida Crocs (#376 world ranking)
#349 Tyrese Knight, Portland Paddlers (#373 world ranking)
WOMEN
#6 Adriana Diaz, MLTT Adjacent (#13 world ranking and sister to Seattle Spinner Fabiola)
#14 Lily Zhang, Bay Area Blasters (#27 world ranking)
#30 Melanie Diaz, MLTT Adjacent (#102 world ranking and also Fabiola’s sister)
#52 Amy Wang, Texas Smash (#72 world ranking)
#86 Fabiola Diaz, Seattle Spinners (#332 world ranking)
#162 Rachel Sung, Portland Paddlers (#259 world ranking)
That’s a total of 18 MLTT team players (and 3 MLTT adjacent players) who made the MLTT’s player popularity list.
So there you have it. Now, like the kids say, go and SMASH the heart button for these players!! And then tell all your ponghead friends to do the same.
