Senura Silva and Jonatan McDonald's Path to Avenging Last Year's Men's Doubles Loss

By Luke Scotchie
NCTTA Press Committee Member

ROCKFORD, IL — Senura Silva and Jonatan McDonald shook each other's hands, both of whom did so without speaking a word to one another. Nothing needed to be said. After all, what is there to say after losing the Men’s Doubles Final in three games to UC Berkeley’s Nikhil Kumar and Sid Naresh (12-10, 11-7, 11-3), the tournament’s top seed? What could they say while watching Kumar and Naresh celebrate a trophy that was just one match away from being theirs?

The only words that could come out of their mouths were congratulatory remarks to the 2025 Men’s Doubles champions. Nothing else the Texas Wesleyan duo could say could have undone their fate.

“It's not always up to yourself,” McDonald said on Friday. “Sometimes the other team is too good.”

Plenty of teams could have said the same about Silva and McDonald. They were the No. 2 seed in the Men’s Doubles tournament that year. They reached the final match in their first year as a duo together. And if that final match hadn’t been against Kumar and Naresh, who would go on to become the primary duo for the Portland Paddlers of Major League Table Tennis, the outcome could have been very different.

Again, Silva and McDonald could not change that match’s result. But if they couldn’t alter the past, they could at least secure the future. Following that loss, the two became much more intentional with how and when they practice, seizing every opportunity to share a table.

That wasn’t difficult for these two Texas Wesleyan classmates. Silva, a business major, and McDonald, a computer science major, consider themselves great friends away from the table. They met before either started attending Texas Wesleyan, during a summer camp that both players attended in 2023. Ever since that summer camp, Silva and McDonald have built a strong chemistry that can turn most good doubles tandems into great ones.

“We’ve always been really good friends,” Silva said. “We study together; we see each other every day.”

These two friends not only have a strong bond, but also a shared goal of taking home the trophy they lost last year. Kumar and Naresh won’t stand in their way this year, either. Kumar graduated in 2025, leaving Naresh to partner with classmate Jerry Fung as the tournament’s … No. 2 seed. Naresh is not part of this year’s No. 1 seed in the Men’s Doubles tournament. He doesn’t attend Texas Wesleyan University, nor is his name Senura Silva or Jonatan McDonald.

Silva and McDonald lived up to their lofty expectations so far in this tournament, having already reached the quarterfinals on Friday without dropping a single game. But that’s not what they’re here for. They have a story to rewrite. They have a shared fate to undo.

This year, they’ve got something to say.

“We really want this,” Silva said. “But most importantly, we’re here to have fun, see what we have worked on in practice to carry over to match play.”

Featured above are Senura Silva and Jonatan McDonald of Texas Wesleyan University. Photo Credit to Yukong Zhang

About 2026 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and GoRockford (Rockford Convention and Visitors Bureau). The event crowns national champions in Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, Men’s/Coed Teams, and Women’s Teams and Collegiate Peakapong Singles.

PongSpace, Peaka Pong, Major League Table Tennis, Nittaku and Paddle Palace will sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday, April 10th on https://www.nctta.org/champs/2026/video.html

About NCTTA

The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to promote 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 competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org