Bay Area's Elsayed Lashin (SPINDEX: 2741) and Lily Zhang (2588) won Men’s and Women’s Players of the Week for Week 6, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT) announced on Tuesday.

This is the third time this season that both winners came from the same team, after Carolina’s Mohamed Shouman (2697) and Chen Sun (2561) won for Week 2, and Portland’s Kang Dong-Soo (2788) and Kotomi Omoda (2610) won for Week 3. Lashin’s and Zhang’s awards tie Bay Area with Portland for the most individual Player of the Week awards this season (three). 

Lashin, who won Men’s Player of the Week for Week 1, now becomes the second multi-time winner of either award after Haeeun Choi (2575) won for Weeks 4 and 5. Because the Blasters have only played in two weekends this year, this means that Lashin has won Men’s Player of the Week every time he took the table during Season 3.

Zhang is the second non-rookie to win Women’s Player of the Week, after Omoda won for Week 3.

Zhang finished her weekend with seven wins, which included a two-game victory against Chicago’s Mo Zhang (2587) on Saturday. She scored at least ten points in each of her games against Princeton’s Jiangshan Guo (2530) and Atlanta’s Andrea Todorovic (2523) and scored 13 points in her three Golden Games.

Zhang’s performance skyrocketed her power rating to 764.9, which is the fourth-highest in the league. She leads all women in that statistic and trails only Princeton’s Seungmin Cho (2805, PR: 786.9) , Kang (PR: 784.1) and Texas’ Hiromitsu Kasahara (2769, PR: 774).

Lashin’s performance brought him to No. 5 on MLTT’s official power rankings, just one spot behind Zhang. He won six of his nine matches this weekend, taking two games each from Princeton’s Benedek Olah (2735), Chicago’s Emmanuel Lebesson (2729) and Atlanta’s Kayama Yu (2758). 

All of those results came in Singles 4, the final set before the Golden Game. Lashin carried his momentum into his three Golden Games, in which he contributed a weekend total of 16 points.

Cho and Chicago’s Robert Gardos (2785) received nominations for Men’s Player of the Week. Mo Zhang was the only other nominee for Women’s Player of the Week. 

Lashin’s and Zhang’s wins mean that a rookie did not receive either Player of the Week award for the first time all season. This is also the first week this year that two players from an away team won both awards in the same weekend.

The Blasters finished Week 6 with one of three wins, boosting their overall record to 2-4 with 50 points. This was the first match the Blasters have played in since Week 1, and they will have many more chances to catch up to their West Division rivals.

Bay Area’s next chance to rise up the West Division will be on Friday, when Week 7 starts in Hollywood, Fla. There, they will face the Los Angeles Spinners (1-5, 50 points), Chicago Wind (5-4, 96 points) and Florida Crocs (2-4, 56 points). 

Each of the Blasters’ Week 7 matches will be streamed exclusively on Table Tennis TV, which you can find online, on iOS, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Sign up today on tabletennis.tv and receive two free weeks!

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