By Michael Reff
Press Committee Chair

Loudnproud returns to Rockford,
Student athletes ratings upward,
Shouting cho’s and var’ous hype words.
Unique playing styles are the norm.

Ceremony, processional pics
Signs and flags and fashionable kicks,
Camaraderie throughout’s what sticks
Anthem singers killed it in peak form.

Stunning upsets across the board,
Hard work pays off in great rewards,
A triumphant return to Rockford.
Our volunteers have definitely answered the call.

A potpourri of all events,
Doubles, teams, singles, Women’s, Men’s.
A kaleidoscopic table tennis lens
Day 1 really had a taste of all.

Group processional photo taken by 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

By Emily Zhao
NCTTA Press Committee Member

Sport and fashion have a long-established marriage. Athlete sponsorships, Olympic uniform reveals, athleisure, the deep encoding of “lifestyle” in pursuits like skiing, golf, and tennis. Unfortunately, table tennis gear is not always runway material. This correspondent recalls a childhood of eye-watering polos in erratic geometric patterns and harsh performance fabrics, all from other, table tennis-loving countries like Japan, Germany, and China.

At this year’s NCTTA Championships, a couple North American fashion endeavors showed out. University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) rocks color-blocked raglan shirts and flowing shorts made by Little Tokyo Table Tennis (LTTT), a Los Angeles brand that opened shop in 2021 and has worked with players like Olympian and NCTTA alum Rachel Sung. This is LTTT’s third year sponsoring UCLA. Founder Jiro Maestu said that at first it was a privilege:

[J]ust getting to sponsor them…because they don’t get sponsors. And then we built this relationship where they would come and train the kids at our club… So every year we wanted to make something new and something cute for them to wear. Any high-level, almost professional-level team should have something like this.

Maestu redesigned the logo, marrying UCLA’s cursive with LTTT’s three-star signature, and converted the sleeves to a raglan cut, more “organic” than sportswear’s traditional straight seams.

If LTTT and UCLA’s partnership captures the material support table tennis desperately needs as it grows in the States, University of Toronto’s kit brought a touch of pure whimsy. Yellow rhinestones stripe the shoulders of their black-and-purple Loki shirts, which caught my bleary eyes as I roved the floor spectating Men’s Doubles. (Toronto’s duo lost 2-3 to NYU.) The team comprises just four players, two from Canada and two from China, who walked the tournament procession in Balenciaga sneakers, giggling and vlogging for a white camcorder. “It’s just a way to express yourself, to feel confident,” said Max Ji, with an “isn’t-it-obvious” shrug to teammate Meech Dullaert. But competitive table tennis is not always a self-evident place to express yourself.

As Harvard player Marianne Wang said (wearing a plain black shirt with an H crest), “NCTTA is a nice sense of reshaping and redeveloping your relationship to table tennis...enjoying it, it’s a part of life, it’s about a lot more than winning.”

A little glitter represents the breathing space and fun NCTTA provides so many intense, dedicated student athletes.

Pictured in photos are members of Toronto's team (photo credit to Trinity Sung) and UCLA's team (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

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

The crown jewel of the NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships is always the Coed Team event. NCTTA is unlike any other competition in the sport in that school teams are able to place men and women to compete together and against one another and on the same team. The best of the best rise above all other areas, united by skill and teamwork. It is out of all of the events at the National Championships the grand centerpiece of them all.

This year’s competition sees 24 of the best University teams gather in Rockford, Illinois at the UW Health Sports Factory, but also uniquely 16 out of 24 include women as a pivotal part of the team.

The age-old argument about women in sports is put on pause at the NCTTA’s as these collegiate men and women will leave it all on the table.

California Berkeley enters as the #1 seed in the event and is the defending champion of NCTTA. Lurking close behind them are perennial giants of College Table Tennis, the Texas Wesleyan Rams, who are second to none with two standouts playing in Major League Table Tennis and a team of international talent to tote. Not to be outdone are the remaining seeds, who aren’t giving in to what it says by seed; they are coming in “hot” and ready to loop, smash, and hit whatever comes at them. A veritable who’s who of domestic US, Canadian, Puerto Rican and international table tennis names.

Check it all out starting Friday April 10th for the battle of the Table Tennis Titans, aka the NCTTA College Table Tennis Coed Team Championships!

Pictured here Senura Silva from Texas Wesleyan awaiting a smash, Picture by Grant Bergmann

About the 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, PeakaPong, 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

UCLA won the 2025 Championships and is slated to be seeded #1 again this year, with the NYC Duo of NYU and Columbia nipping at their heels. Don’t count out the rest of the draw either; these are the best of the best Women’s College Table Tennis teams in North America. Two Canadian schools, Western and McMaster, are sure to turn some heads, as typically the Canadian Collegiates are much higher than their ratings. UT Austin, led by chopper extraordinaire Fan Miao, will be tough, Cornell’s one-two punch of Canadian international Gina Fu and US based player Muskan Gupta may yield lots of doubles deciders, and, of course, Harvard, led by Hong Kong Champion, Kelly Yenn, is always up for a fight.

To unseat the defending champs, however, is going to be tough as UCLA’s Women’s team is coming in with a combined rating of over 11k, which is comparable to a Men’s/Coed Team. UCLA is led by Luoxuan Shao and Angie Tan.

Check out the Women’s Team Championships on Friday, April 10th live-streamed on NCTTA’s youtube channel.

Pictured here are Cornell’s dynamic doubles duo from the 2025 NCTTA Championships

About the 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, PeakaPong, 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

There is literally nowhere to hide in the 2026 NCTTA Men’s Singles Competition. The tournament is full at 80 men and all but 1 are rated above the magical 2000 rating point. This event showcases the strongest Men’s Singles event in NCTTA history.

The highest seed is Ved Sheth from California with a Godly 2669 rating and our lowest seed is Henry Wang of Michigan at 1902, which isn’t anything to sneeze at either. USA Table Tennis National
Team player, Sid Naresh and fellow California teammate at #2 are sitting pretty!

Joe Wells, NCTTA VP, says, “We are going to see a firefight of loops and smashes, chops and if we are lucky, some lobbing!”

Statistically speaking, Texas Wesleyan, which has 9 student athletes in the competition, will be ready to pounce. From the outside looking in, prepare for some untested talent out of the relatively unknown schools outside of the USA to make some noise (Western and Universidad de Puerto Rico Arecibo).

Las Vegas may not be able to get the eventual winner correct, so check it out starting Friday, April 10th at the 2026 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships!

Pictured here from Yukong Zhang, #2 seed, California’s Sid Naresh

About the 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, PeakaPong, 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

From one year to the next, one would generally expect the same top players, but not this year in the 2026 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championship’s Women’s Singles Event!

Several new faces have come on board to make things “very interesting.” Just alone in the Top 10, almost one half are new to NCTTA. Enter center stage: Isabella Xu (North Carolina), Fan Miao (Texas), Rachel Wang (Columbia) and #1 seed, Amber Liu (Cal Tech).

Amber Liu, originally from the Atlanta, Georgia area, is an interesting player as she is from a school (Cal Tech) that did not qualify for the NCTTA Championships so she is coming to represent her club team as the only player. Making the trip by oneself can be challenging, but adding on she is also the top seed a mere 13 points higher than #2 seed Kelly Yenn.

Check them all out at the NCTTA Championships starting Friday April 10th!

Pictured here is Amber Liu at the recent 2026 West Regional Championships

About the 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, PeakaPong, 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

As the 2026 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships approaches, the spotlight isn’t just on the student athletes, but also on our dedicated coaches who help shape the community and culture of College TT.

NCTTA has embraced a coach-centered philosophy, basically saying that coaches play a critical role past the basic fundamentals of forehands and backhands, by also serving as mentors and builders of personal development.

At Columbia University, Coach Kai Zhang (former NCTTA Athlete from Binghamton and USC) tells us about his experience. Coach Zhang won titles in Men’s singles and Men’s Doubles in each NCTTA Championships he has attended; Columbia University is fortune to have him.

I have been coaching the whole year with the team. We are friends and always support each other either on and off court. I believe success is happiness, and that happiness comes from facing hard problems and coming out slightly better each time. That’s the culture we try to build.

At the University of Texas at Austin, Coach Brian Zhao says that success in College table tennis extends far beyond the table.

“College table tennis is about making friends and winning your teammates,” Zhao shared, highlighting the unique camaraderie that defines NCTTA as a whole.

For Western Player/Coach Nicole Cai, the journey to the national stage is built on consistency both on the table and off of it. It is part of an overall mindset.

Cai explains, “Every tournament is part of the process. From division play to regionals, to CITTA, we treat each competition as a learning opportunity. By Nationals, it’s not about doing anything completely new, it’s about trusting the work we’ve already put in.”

That process reflects a broader approach that many programs take, connecting competitions like the Canadian collegiate league (CITTA) with the elite level of NCTTA play, reinforcing the growing international reach of college table tennis.

Sportsmanship also remains a cornerstone of the NCTTA experience. Yuhan Wu, Coach of Minnesota, emphasized the importance of competing with integrity.

“Playing with class and integrity is just as important as performance.”
Meanwhile, at the University of Michigan, longtime coach Dan Robbins—who has led the program for over a decade—points to preparation as the foundation of success.

“Being prepared for matches and having a strategy,” Robbins said.

Together, these perspectives reflect the essence of the NCTTA’s mission: fostering a competitive environment grounded in teamwork, personal growth, and respect for the game.

As teams come together in Rockford for the 2026 Championships, it is clear that the impact of coaches extends far beyond the basic forehands and backhands. They are the driving force behind the student-athlete experience; building not just stronger players, but stronger communities.

Pictured here, Columbia University Coach and NCTTA Alum, Kai Zhang with a player from the team

About the 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, PeakaPong, 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

As a part of the 2026 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships are the Men’s and Women’s Doubles events. The top 32 men's and Top 16 women's doubles pairings (selected by their schools) will compete in this event. Doubles has long been an important aspect of NCTTA as basically the tie breaker in a Teams match, but here it is in its own event.

In the Men’s Doubles event, these top collegiate duos are going to have to battle through a very deep and competitive field. Texas Wesleyan’s McDonald and Silva are the clear favorites both on rating and experience. One could see the righty lefty tandem from California Sid Naresh and Jerry Fung as a potential victor, and also a potential dark horse with North Carolina’s pair as the unknown Xander Ye teams up with Tianyi Zhou.

In the Women’s Doubles event, we see the Harvard pair, Kelly Yenn and Hannah Song as strong favorites, though not to be counted out are the Columbia and UCLA pairings either. Look at the dark horse with the two-sister combination at Western with Demi and Nicole Cai.

“Doubles is where teamwork truly comes to live” said Jay Lu, League Director. “The level of coordination and trust between partners needs to be top notch to excel at this level.”

Featured above are Texas Wesleyan's Jonatan McDonald and Senura Silva

About the 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, PeakaPong, 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

By Michael Reff
Press Committee Chair

Breaking news! Our friends in Puerto Rico have returned with the strength and passion of their island! For the first time since the 2011 season, a Puerto Rican team has participated in NCTTA, and since 2012, that a Puerto Rican team has advanced to the Championships! This time the team is the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo (UPRA). I got to ask the UPRA Athletic Director, Mr. Christian Tellado, for a quote on how he feels about his team’s accomplishments.

(Translated by Press Committee Chair from Spanish)

This is a historical moment, not only for our program, but also for Puerto Rico. After more than 15 years, since 2011 without representation in NCTTA, returning to the scene is a reflection of the vision, the compromise, and the consistent work of our student athletes and technical staff. As Athletic Director, I feel a deep pride. Our student athletes understand the responsibility that they carry, that they not only represent the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo, rather the island as a whole with a great tradition in table tennis. This opportunity means a lot for them, they are motivated, focused, and grateful to be able to be part of something bigger than themselves. Our goals for this Championships go way beyond the results. We aspire to compete at the highest level with discipline and passion, establishing a solid presence, and creating the foundation so that more Puerto Rican programs become part of NCTTA in the future. For us, success is representing our institution and Puerto Rico with excellence, dignity, and pride, while we open the path for future generations.

As you all can see, overall this accomplishment is for Puerto Rico as a whole.

Here in NCTTA we congratulate the UPRA team who carry the pride of Puerto Rico through to the Championships in Rockford, IL!

Featured in the photo is the UPRA team at the Northeast Regionals

About the 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, PeakaPong, 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