Singles Sunday Quite a Funday

By Brayden Glad
NCTTA Media Committee

Early singles rounds produce few surprises

The first three rounds of Men’s singles produced a single upset in each round, and the other matches all held to form. This illustrates just how wide the margin is between the upper tier of US college table tennis and the players a few levels below. The notable upsets were #36 Nokhin Tong of Washington over #28 Benjamin Hartwiger of Texas A&M 3-1 in the round of 64, #21 LeTuanKhai Dinh of Maryland overcoming #13 Tianming Xie of Harvard in 5 sets in the round of 32, and finally #10 Sahil Puri of Washington defeating #8 Eduardo Tomoike of Texas in 5 sets in the round of 16.

The Women’s bracket likewise produced a single upset in the rounds of 32 and 16, and none in the quarterfinals. In the round of 32, #16 Yanyu Xie of Georgia Tech defeated #10 Andi Mai of NYU in four sets, and in the round of 16 #12 Lavanya Maruthapandian of California defeated #8 Maria Castillo of MIT 3-1.

Fireworks and Clashing Styles fill singles semis and finals

Upsets were few and far between in the Men’s and Women’s singles matchups, with all 4 top seeds making the semifinals in both events. In the Women’s bracket, #1 Angela Guan of California battles #3 Jiaqi Lin of Texas Wesleyan, while #2 Zhen Deng of Texas Wesleyan takes on Xin Li of Ohlone College.

The latter match proceeded at a rapid pace, with Zhen Deng overpowering Xin Li with short, rapid attacks to win four close, hard-fought sets at (10, 9, 7, 8). In contrast, the former match had its pace dictated by the methodical chopping of Angela Guan, and narrowly avoided the expedite rule in the first close set as Guan defeated Jiaqi Lin in 5 sets (9, 3, -5, 3, 6).

The finals promised to be a battle of contrasting styles, but Guan seemed more able to keep the pace to her liking as extended rallies of chops was the order of the day. The match went to the expedite system in set 3, and Guan was able to see out a (10, 7, 9, -4, 6) victory in relative comfort as the expedite system failed to provide Zhen Deng sufficient attacking chances.

In the Men’s bracket, #1 Sharon Alguetti of Indiana plays #4 Nikhil Kumar of California and #2 Kai Zhang of U. Southern California plays #3 Gal Alguetti of Indiana. Both matches featured fantastic attacking table tennis, with long, hard-fought rallies. In the end, the higher seeds were just slightly more accurate with those attacks, with Sharon Alguetti defeating Nikhil Kumar (4, -4, 7, 3, 2) and Kai Zhang outlasting Gal Alguetti (5, -10, 4, 7, -11, 9).

The finals delivered on their promise as a high-energy affair with multiple long counter-attacking rallies throughout the match. The match was a close, back-and-forth affair throughout, with Sharon Alguetti ultimately prevailing in an epic (-7, 9, 7, -8, 6, 8) win.

Photo of Angela Guan. Photo Credit to Dean Ginther

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

About NCTTA

The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org