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LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. — Most revolutions typically involve an uprising, which could very easily describe Princeton’s tumultuous Week 15.

All six players on the Revolution’s active roster rallied around a common goal: earn the final available spot at Championship Weekend. Achieving that goal would involve overthrowing the New York Slice, who held that playoff spot heading into Week 15. At that time, the Slice sat 35 points ahead of the Revolution, who’d have to complete their season without superstar and MLTT’s top-ranked player Cho Seungmin (SPINDEX: 2818). And with only one weekend left in the regular season, Princeton needed to score 35 points in Week 15 and overthrow the Slice if they wanted to reach their goal of making it to the playoffs.

“This isn’t an easy position,” Revolution coach Mathias Habesohn said on Friday. “But what kind of coach would I be if I come here and say, ‘We have no chance?’” 

No dream worth fighting for is ever easy to achieve, which Princeton found out the hard way on Friday. They had all the momentum against the Portland Paddlers throughout their match on Friday. Benedek Olah (2750) took two of three games from Jens Lundqvist (2755). Hsien Tzu Cheng (2573) won two games against Kotomi Omoda (2599). It looked as though they could defeat the team with the league's best record.

That’s when Koyo Kanamitsu (2658) and Jinxin Wang (2737) faltered against Nikhil Kumar (2777) and Sid Naresh (2606) in Doubles. And immediately after, Kanamitsu lost all three games to Hampus Nordberg (2758). Shuo Yang (2751) salvaged some of his team’s odds at winning with a 2-1 Singles 4 victory over Kumar, but the Revolution couldn’t finish out the Golden Game and ended up losing 7-14. 

But they still won seven points, which took their magic number from 35 to 28. Their next opponent would be the Atlanta Blazers, who had been eliminated from postseason contention the night prior. Yang, Olah and Cheng all won two of the three Singles games they played in, which was enough to earn Princeton the Golden Game, and eventually the 14-7 win.

“They did a really good job,” Habesohn said on Saturday. “Not only play-ing wise, [but] also attitude-wise, also preparing-wise, practice-wise. I just think they deserved to win today.”

With that win, only 14 points stood between the Revolution and a spot in the postseason. Those 14 points would have to come against the Florida Crocs, who weren’t planning to aid Princeton’s uprising. In fact, Asuka Sakai (2748) won two games against Kanamitsu in Singles 1, which capped their maximum point total for that match at 13 before Singles 2. If the Revolution wanted to make the playoffs, they’d have to win the Golden Game.

The Revolution spent the rest of that match making that order a little less tall. Jiangshan Guo (2542) swept Tashiya Piyadasa (2380) in Singles 2 to regain the lead. Kanamitsu and Wang clobbered Angel Naranjo (2613) and Chihwei Yeh (2644) in Doubles to widen that lead to 7-2. And as they’d done in each of their prior matches, Yang and Olah took two of their three games to secure Princeton a five-point lead in the Golden Game.

Within minutes of the start of that Golden Game, the Revolution’s five-point lead disappeared. Olah and Wang couldn’t stop Sakai and Yeh from tying the Golden Game right when it started. Such has been the story of the Princeton Revolution all season long. They’ve never had a problem putting themselves in position to win Golden Games. But capitalizing on those leads? That doesn’t come nearly as easy, apparently.

“We can’t do anything easy,” Revolution co-owner Andre Liu said. “I don’t know what it is, but we just can’t do anything easy.”

The score remained close throughout the Golden Game, and at a certain point, the Revolution reached 20 points. Kanamitsu was at the table against Daniel Gorak (2670), whose Crocs trailed by just one point. Kanamitsu had won only two of his nine Singles games that weekend, and he was up against one of the Crocs’ top players. But Kanamitsu had all the leverage in the world. If he scored one point, that final playoff spot was theirs.

And a few seconds later, he scored that point.

Fans and players stormed the court and embraced an emotional Kanamitsu. The jubilee inside Rider University’s alumni gymnasium after that one point overwhelmed the sting of Kanamitsu’s shortcomings that weekend. That single point allowed the Revolution to complete their uprising.

“It’s just the most poetic moment,” Liu said. “The guy who basically felt like he had lost the last couple [of matches] for us came through in the end, in the most exciting way possible.”

The Revolution finished their season with a 7-11 record and 188 points, just three points ahead of the Slice. That same season started with a 0-3 Week 4, the Revolution’s only other week without Cho. They finished Week 13 with that very same record, putting a brutal end to Cho’s final regular season weekend with the team. 

But Cho will be back. He has a chance to lead the Revolution to their first championship in team history, a chance that seemed impossible just two weeks ago. They’ll have to outlast the Portland Paddlers, Carolina Gold Rush and Chicago Wind, and a single lost match will remove their eligibility of taking that trophy home.

But if Princeton performs the way they did in Week 15, they could embark on another successful uprising. And in that scenario, they could overthrow every other MLTT team and become the champions of Season 3.

“That’s why sports are great,” Liu said.

Portland Paddlers

Sixteen wins and two losses.

260 points.

A 10-match winning streak dating back to Oct. 25 in Week 4.

That’s how the Portland Paddlers ended the most dominant season of any team all year.

Specifically, that season ended with a perfect 3-0 weekend. There were some scares along the way, particularly in multiple Golden Games they let become uncomfortably close, but they still managed to defeat the Princeton Revolution 14-7 on Friday, the Florida Crocs 14-7 on Saturday and the Atlanta Blazers 15-6 on Sunday. It’s as if the Paddlers were destined to win these final three matches, but they achieved their third consecutive perfect weekend through hard work and brilliant table tennis from perhaps the league’s deepest roster. 

Hampus Nordberg led that roster throughout most of the weekend, winning a weekend-most seven Singles games against Princeton’s Koyo Kanamitsu, Florida’s Asuka Sakai and Atlanta’s Kayama Yu (2804). Sid Naresh and Nikhil Kumar brought their Doubles dominance to Week 15, winning six of their nine possible games. And even though Jens Lundqvist started his weekend off rocky after falling 1-2 to Princeton’s Benedek Olah on Friday, he took four of his next six against Florida’s Angel Naranjo and Yuya Oshima (2779). 

Portland seemed to be cruising on their way to Championship Weekend, but their easy journey ends here. Kang Dong-Soo (2788) is not eligible to compete in the postseason due to his failure to participate in three weekends with the Paddlers. Nordberg will also miss Championship Weekend, as he will be at home welcoming his third child into the world that week.

And yet, losing those two crucial players doesn’t even seem to make a dent in the Paddlers’ roster. They are expected to bring Kumar, Naresh, Lundqvist, Kotomi Omoda (2599), Minhyung Jee (2488) and Minhyeok Kim (2735) to Fremont, Calif., where they will face the Princeton Revolution in the first round. That’s the same Revolution they’ve beaten twice already this season, once this weekend and once in Week 4 (17-4). And if they can make it a third time on April 18, they’ll be on their way to their first-ever appearance in the MLTT Finals.

“It’s been such an amazing season for us,” Naresh said. “I hope we can take this confidence into the playoffs.”

Florida Crocs

The Florida Crocs’ season ended in a very familiar way: a 6-15 loss to the Atlanta Blazers on Friday, a 7-14 loss to the Portland Paddlers on Saturday and a 17-4 loss to the Princeton Revolution on Sunday.

The Crocs were used to losing by now. They only had one win in their last nine matches, which came down to an ultimate golden point. They were the only team in Week 15 without a playoff spot or a No. 1 seed to fight for; they had already been eliminated from postseason contention in Week 14. And after another winless weekend, the Crocs will finish their season with a 4-14 record, 131 points and a .347 winning percentage, all three of which rank at the bottom of MLTT.

That league-worst winning percentage could be a blessing in disguise, though. They officially will have the league’s best odds at securing No. 1 overall pick in the Season 4 MLTT Draft at 28.6%. That’s a 28.6% chance of adding a player like Quadri Aruna or Jin Takuya onto a roster that’s expected to welcome superstar Liam Pitchford (2897) back from the season-ending hip injury he suffered in November.

That player will join a roster full of talented players not named Pitchford, all of whom still competed even with nothing to play for. Daniel Gorak faced Portland’s Sid Naresh and Atlanta’s Yuya Oshima and won three of his six games against them. Asuka Sakai took two of three from Princeton’s Koyo Kanamitsu. Marc Duran (2649) stayed competitive against Princeton’s Benedek Olah and Atlanta’s Braxton Chang, both of whom had fantastic weekends. 

The Crocs’ season is over, which means that they’re done losing for the next couple of months. And if the MLTT Draft Lottery balls bounce their way on April 7, then they could avoid losing for months, potentially even years to come.

Atlanta Blazers

The Atlanta Blazers jogged onto the court prior to Sunday’s match. MLTT emcee Tianna Cohen shouted the names of each Blazer, just as she had done with every prior one of their matches. There was nothing inherently special about this match. The Blazers had been eliminated from playoff contention two days prior, and their opponents, the Portland Paddlers, had secured the No. 1 seed in the West Division. Neither of these teams had anything to play for, at least from a standings perspective.

So what prompted MLTT Commissioner Flint Lane to approach Blazers coach Suzi Battison with flowers the players bought for her prior to Sunday’s match? What encouraged Tom Feng (2657) to give a speech expressing how thankful the Blazers were for Battison? What prompted the Blazers to compete with maximum effort throughout the match?

Something worth far more than any number of total points the Blazers could score.

Sunday’s match was Battison’s last as the head coach of the Atlanta Blazers. She wanted to spend more time at home with her kids, which is why she decided to step away from the family she created in Atlanta. That family rallied around her for the league’s final regular season week, with the hopes of showing Battison how much her coaching has meant to them all season long.

“As a new expansion team, fighting through our first MLTT season was a massive challenge,” Feng said in his pre-match speech. “But you made it an unforgettable adventure.”

If you only looked at the win-loss record for the weekend, you wouldn’t Battison’s time with the Blazers ended on a positive note. They defeated the Florida Crocs 15-6 before losing 7-14 to the Princeton Revolution and 6-15 to the Portland Paddlers, which removed their longshot odds at making the postseason. But they still scored 28 out of an available 63 points and came just five Golden Game points away from a 3-0 record in Week 15.

They managed to get that close to a perfect weekend without any of Jeet Chandra (2634), Andrea Todorovic (2497) or Rachel Sung (2521). That’s because the players that competed this weekend had some of their best performances all season. Kayama Yu won six of his nine Singles games against Florida’s Asuka Sakai, Princeton’s Koyo Kanamitsu and Portland’s Hampus Nordberg. Braxton Chang (2604) won five games and two sets, and he almost won his third against Princeton’s Yang Shuo.

That incredible effort wasn’t enough to make the playoffs, but that wasn’t a realistic expectation. They could only afford to lose five total points before facing elimination, a number they surpassed on Friday. And that may be the most impressive fact about the Blazers’ season. This was the same Blazers team that had a 0-5 record midway through Week 6. This was the same Blazers team that became the last team to record their first win of Season 3. That team, a team whose postseason odds looked bleak just a few months ago, remained in the playoff race until the final week of the season. At a point when plenty of teams and coaches would have given up hope, the Blazers kept fighting for that ever-fleeting chance to make a postseason.

Though that chance never came to fruition, the Blazers still sent Battison off with an impressive weekend. Battison doesn’t intend to leave for good, though. She told Table Tennis TV that she wants to return to MLTT for Season 5, and hopes her departure ends up as nothing more than a hiatus. 

But if she ends up coaching a new team in the near future, it will be hard for her to top the memories, camaraderie and kinship she felt with the Blazers team she coached in Season 3.

“These players will be long-term friends,” Battison said. “Lifetime friends.”

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