NYU coed and women’s teams at the banquet
The NYU Table Tennis Team made history at the 2018 iSET College Table Tennis National Championships in Round Rock, Texas, April 20th-22nd, bringing home 3rd place in the women’s team event as well as 1st place in the Men’s/Co-ed team event for the first time ever. In addition, Yijun Feng/Adar Alguetti got 2nd in men’s doubles, and Yijun Feng got 3rd in men’s singles.
This year’s National Championships attracted 276 of the best college table tennis players from 32 countries, representing 50 different colleges and universities across North America. These players fought tooth and nail for 3 straight days, seeking glory for their schools. There were 16 players representing NYU: Yijun(Tom) Feng, Adar Alguetti, Mudit Dani, Wenhao She, Michael Song, Robert Li, Liying Li (captain), and Haoran Su from the Coed team, and Leslie Liu, Xiaotong Sun, Joanna Song, Chiaoyi Yang, Kezhi Zuo (captain), Kuan-Jen Ho, Luyi Li, and Ruishan Lin from the NYU women’s team, accompanied by the best cheerleader, Alex Chang. Both teams were coached by Yanjun Gao, a former NCTTA national champion.
Led by 2016 US Olympian, Tom Feng, the NYU coed team entered the competition as the 5th seed. US National Team member, Adar Alguetti, Indian Junior International player, Mudit Dani and Ex-Chinese Provincial Team player Wenhao She filled up the ranks for team NYU, In the round robin stage, NYU defeated Binghamton 4-0, UC Davis 3-2 and UT Dallas 3-1, advancing as No.1 in their group. As expected, NYU breezed safely into the Round of 16.
With a 3-0 win over University of Texas at Austin, NYU advanced to the quarter-final against UC Berkeley, the 4th seed and last year’s runner-up. The closest clash was between Adar and 2-time US Olympian, Lily Zhang. Adar claimed victory in the fifth game and NYU ultimately took the team match 3-0. The first upset; it would be the first of many on NYU’s historic championship run.
In the semi-final NYU faced Mississippi College, the 2015 champion and 2nd seed this year. The match was tied at 1-1 after the first two singles were split. With the sheer depth of the Mississippi Team, NYU was expected to lose the next two singles and face defeat in this team tie. However, Mudit Dani wouldn’t entertain the idea for a second. In spectacular fashion, Dani caused a miraculous upset in the third match and saved NYU from defeat. Sadly Wenhao went on to lose the 4th singles match, meaning it would come down to the doubles. But Tom and Adar, already in the Men’s Doubles Final, battled their way aided by the applause and cheers of their teammates to claim a 3-2 victory over Mississippi pair Xiang He/Qingwei Sun. The NYU team displayed true grit as they sealed their victory by 11-9 in the fifth game,
The opponent in the final would be the intimidating No.1 seed, Texas Wesleyan, who had an astounding taken 13 coed championship titles in the past 14 years. Their strong and even lineup included 2015 US Open Champion Jinxin Wang, defending College singles champion Jishan Liang, last year’s singles runner-up Bruno Ventura Dos Anjos, and former Chinese National Team member Feng Zhe.
Adar and Tom stunned Wesleyan by beating Wang and Liang respectively both 3-1, giving NYU a headstart 2-0 lead. But quickly Wesleyan leveled the game to 2-2 as Bruno and Feng Zhe showed their absolute class against Mudit and Wenhao. Once again it came down to the deciding doubles, Wang/Feng Zhe versus Tom/Adar.
The cheers of the NYU crowd could be heard throughout the whole stadium as NYU raced to a quick 2-0 lead. Texas Wesleyan fought back, saving two match points in breathtaking deuce and finally taking the 3rd game 13-11. Saddened, but resolved, NYU did not let the chance slip again. In the 4th game, with their confidence and determination, NYU inched their way towards the final glory, 5-1, 9-3, 10-5, and eventually 11-8, claiming their first national champion title and establishing itself as the leading name in Collegiate Table Tennis.
NYU’s Women’s Team also made school history in the tournament. Seeded 8th in the Women’s Team event, the NYU women also pulled off a number of upsets to achieve a historical 3rd place finish in the event.
NYU achieved a 2nd place finish in the group stage, losing 0-4 to the 2nd seed UC Berkeley, which was headed by US National Team Members Angela Guan and Lily Zhang, but defeated the 9th seed UT Austin 3-1. This result landed them a quarterfinal berth.
In the quarter final, NYU drew the University of British Columbia (UBC), the 4th seed.
While Leslie ended up losing to Cherry Zheng 1-3 in the first match, NYU’s second player Xiaotong pulled off an extraordinary upset, sweeping Jane Yan by 3-0. The score was tied 2-2 as NYU won the third match but lost the fourth. It would take doubles to name the winner of this quarter-final team matchup.
The doubles match between Leslie/Xiaotong from NYU and Zheng/Yan from UBC proved to be one of the most nail-biting matches of the tournament. Despite starting off with a 9-6 lead in the first game, UBC proceeded to win five straight points to the stun the NYU team. NYU responded to comfortably take the next game 11-8. In the third game, both teams seemed to have found their rhythm, exchanging spinny forehands and quick off the bounce backhands; Zheng and Yan established a 10-5 lead, Xiaotong and Leslie tied the game at 10-10, but UBC still claimed the third game 14-12. NYU quickly recovered from that and dominated the fourth game by 11-2. In the final game, UBC started well and led throughout the beginning and middle stages, but NYU did not give up. The score went from 0-4 to 3-4, and then from 3-6 to 6-6. UBC had two match points at 10-8; defeat seemed imminent for the NYU team. However, two beautiful serves from Xiaotong made way for a powerful surge of willpower from the NYU pair as they took the next four consecutive points to win 12-10. NYU had made the semi-finals!
In the semi-final, NYU lost to Texas Wesleyan, the no.1 seed and defending champion. On the opposite half of the draw, group stage opponent UC Berkeley defeated University of Washington by 3-0, leaving NYU to contest the 6th seed University of Washington in the 3rd place match. The talented NYU girls caused another upset, beating Washington by an overall match score of 3-0. They achieved a bronze medal fairytale ending.
In addition to the strong showings in both team events, NYU made a huge impact on the Men’s Doubles and Singles events as well. In the men’s doubles, Tom/Adar, seeded as no.3, made a finals appear against Bruno Ventura and Feng Zhe of Texas Wesleyan. Unfortunately, probably due to fatigue from their team matches, Adar and Tom could not stop the powerful Texas Wesleyan pair as they lost the match 3-1. However, second place in and of itself is already a school record. Congratulations to Tom and Adar!
In the Men’s Singles event, Tom made it to the semifinals. However, the road to get there was taxing. In the quarterfinals, Tom had to fend off 5 match points in the 4th game against Massao Kohatsu of Lindenwood University. One by one Tom began to draw parity at 10-10. One by one the screams from the NYU crowd grew louder and louder. Tom took the game in deuce 15-13 and proceeded to win the 5th game 11-8 to make the semifinals. Unfortunately, Tom would lose a very close match against Kai Zhang of Binghamton 3-4. Nevertheless, Tom had a tremendous campaign in all three of the events he participated in, and he left Round Rock with his head held high.
Coach Gao was both exhausted and excited at the end of the tournament. As a coach, he sat through most of the NYU matches for three entire days, providing vital advice and crucial support to his players during game breaks and timeouts. With a sore throat, he commented, “I think Tom is our MVP. Being the backbone of the team, he has made great sacrifices in the past year. And he did not lose a single match in the team’s event. I am also very proud of the team spirit and unity that our NYU team has displayed. Being “the loudest team”, we rallied always as a whole team behind the players in the court, and it is for this reason that we have achieved a lot.” NYU’s historic win was a culmination of the passion, the confidence, and the pride we had in ourselves, in our game, and in each other.
