BENSENVILLE, Ill. — Sid Naresh fell in love with table tennis as a child growing up in Naperville, Ill. His loved ones discovered his talent for the sport whenever they saw the boy play in Illinois. And after several years, thousands of points, and even a Major League Table Tennis championship trophy later, Naresh once again played the sport he loves in front of the people who first believed in him.

And Naresh couldn’t have asked for a sweeter homecoming.

“I had amazing support with all my friends and family here,” Naresh said. “[I’m] super happy to be able to play like this at home.”

The Portland Paddlers came to Bensenville as the undisputed top team in the league, and they left with two wins, a 7-2 overall record and 125 points so far this season. Much of that success was because of Naresh, who crushed every single opportunity that Coach Christian Lillieroos gave him this weekend.

The Paddlers traded for Naresh hoping he could boost their performance in doubles, and he did. He played alongside Nikhil Kumar in all three of the Paddlers’ doubles matches, and together they won six of their nine games.

He even had an opportunity to play in a singles match on Sunday against Princeton’s Mathieu de Saintilan. Paddlers coach Christian Lillieroos knows how well Naresh plays against choppers like de Saintilan, and Naresh immediately proved his coach right with a 3-0 sweep in his first singles match of Season 3.

“That was sensational, and I’m very, very proud of him,” Lillieroos said. “He is on record now as our best singles player.”

Naresh had plenty of support from his teammates. Third-overall pick Min Hyeok Kim only lost three of his nine singles matches, and his sweep of Tao Wenzhang on Saturday kept Portland within striking distance of the New York Slice. Hampus Nordberg closed out each match for Portland and won five of his nine games in Singles 4, which included a sweep of Chicago’s Emmanuel Lebesson on Friday. The Paddlers showcased their incredible depth all weekend, proving that they can win without key veteran Jens Lundqvist or star rookie Kang Dong-Soo, the league’s reigning Male Player of the Week. 

Portland also faced Chicago without Female Player of the Week Kotomi Omoda, who competed in the All-Japan University Championships until Friday. As Omoda boarded a plane from Japan to Chicago, Rachel Sung made her Season 3 debut against the Chicago Wind’s Mo Zhang.

Omoda returned on Saturday for the Paddlers’ match against New York, but she lost her singles match to rookie Haeeun Choi. With another opportunity to compete on Sunday, she showed Bensenville why she’s the highest-ranked woman in all of Major League Table Tennis (MLTT) with a sweep of Princeton’s Jiangshan Guo.

“She is definitely a contender for the best female in the league, in my opinion,” Lillieroos said.

It wasn’t a perfect weekend for Portland, as their loss to the New York Slice on Saturday snapped a four-game winning streak. But that loss did not overshadow an impressive victory over the Chicago Wind on Friday or an overwhelming triumph over the Princeton Revolution on Sunday.

This weekend only proved that the Paddlers are still the team to beat in the West, and it’s now looking harder for their opponents to do so. 

“A lot of [our opponents] will be gunning for us,” Naresh said, “But as long as we just keep the same energy and keep focus, I think we can keep going.”

‍New York Slice

The New York Slice (4-2, 71 points) had a lot of questions to answer after winning two of their three games during Week 2. Are they already a true postseason threat in their first year as a team? How will they adjust once their opponents have a better idea of how they play? Was their successful debut a fluke, or is it an omen for anyone they may face? 

Some of those questions now have answers after leaving another weekend with a 2-1 record.

The results of their games mirror how they performed in Charlotte. They spoiled the Princeton Revolution’s season debut with a 15-6 win, and snapping the Portland Paddlers’ five-game winning streak established themselves as a team to be feared. But they ran out of gas in the final game of the weekend against Chicago, losing yet another match to the hometown team.

The Slice have a roster that can contend with the league’s best. It already has. Superstar rookie Koki Niwa spent another weekend overwhelming his opposing teams’ premier players, winning two against Princeton’s Benedek Olah and sweeping Portland’s Nikhil Kumar in Singles 1. At the bottom of the order, Yiran Wu won six straight games against Princeton’s Jinxin Wang and Portland’s Hampus Nordberg.

Niwa and Wu were the first two MLTT Draft selections in the history of the New York Slice, and their performances, especially Wu’s as a second-rounder, indicate that coach Adam Hugh walked away with one of this year’s best draft classes. 

“[Wu] was my second round pick after Koki Niwa, and he’s proven every bit as what we expected going into it,” said Hugh. “He’s making a name for himself right now.”

But the Slice’s third selection emerged as their MVP this weekend. And she didn’t even have a weekend of preparation. Haeeun Choi entered her first weekend as an MLTT player with a very tall task ahead of her: defeat Princeton’s Jiangshan Guo, Portland’s Kotomi Omoda and Chicago’s Mo Zhang in their first-ever MLTT weekend. That’s exactly what she did. She took one game from Guo, swept the Female Player of the Week, and won two games against Season 2’s Female MVP. 

Many would be forgiven for underestimating the Slice. They’re an expansion team with only two weekends of MLTT experience. And yet, that expansion team stands atop the East Division opponents with just two losses in team history. 

If they continue to perform the way they did in Week 4, that number won’t be getting much higher anytime soon.

‍Princeton Revolution

The Princeton Revolution (0-3, 17 points) were the only MLTT team to enter Week 4 without having played a single match in Season 3. And now that they’ve made their season debut, the Revolution are now one of two teams to leave Week 4 without a win.

Princeton’s extended time away from the table proved to be a curse rather than a blessing. They started their season with a 15-6 loss to the New York Slice, who already had a weekend to warm up. They followed that up with a 14-7 loss against a Chicago Wind team fresh off their last set of matches just two weeks ago. 

The Revolution’s third and final match of their opening weekend came on Sunday against the Paddlers, who had already played in eight games before the match began. Portland was the far more experienced team heading into this match, and their 17-4 victory proved that the experience mattered.

The Revolution may have stumbled out of the gate, but there was plenty to suggest that they could still finish strong. Koyo Kanamitsu and Jinxing Wang had an impressive run in doubles, taking two games from each of the three tandems they faced all weekend. They finished with the best doubles record of the week, 

Jiangshan Guo had a standout debut weekend as well, taking two of three games from New York’s Haeeun Choi on Friday and sweeping Chicago’s Mo Zhang on Sunday. She couldn’t reach 11 points against Portland’s Kotomi Omoda on Sunday, but she still proved herself as a key piece for Princeton moving forward.

Princeton may not have had the opener they had hoped for, but it’s hard to look at the Revolution’s performance without any positive takeaways. A potentially dominant doubles duo and Guo’s should excite Revolution fans, as should the expected MLTT debut of fourth-overall pick Seungmin Cho in Week 5.

Chicago Wind

When we last saw the Chicago Wind, they had just lost two of the first three matches of their season. That outcome did not accurately reflect the Wind’s Week 3 performance, as many of their players looked much better than their team’s losing record suggested. 

With another chance to prove their strength, this time in front of their home crowd, they put together a record that resembled the postseason threat they were last season.

The Wind blew away the struggles of their opening weekend, winning two games in Week 4 and putting their overall record at 3-3 with 62 points. They were very close to winning all three of their matches and becoming the third consecutive team to go undefeated in their home stadium, but their Golden Game comeback against the Portland Paddlers came far too late to earn them anything more than a 16-5 loss on Friday.

That would be the last loss of the weekend for Chicago. They bounced back with a 14-7 victory over Princeton on Sunday, and they defeated New York 12-9 despite facing a three-point deficit before the Golden Game. 

Rookie first-rounder Robert Gardos was the Wind’s unquestionable standout during the weekend, as the rookie took at least two games from each of his Singles 1 opponents: Min Hyeok Kim, Koyo Kanamitsu and Koki Niwa. Gardos’ second game against Niwa may have been the most impressive game of the season so far, as he held the superstar to just one point throughout the entire game.

Chicago found themselves in a losing position at many points throughout the weekend, but crucial matches from key players always kept them within a competitive range. A complete sweep from Sean Zhang over Princeton free agent Kewei Lei turned a 5-4 deficit into a 7-5 lead. The New York Slice were ahead by four points when Emmanuel Lebesson came to face Yiran Wu on Sunday, but Lebesson took two of three games in Singles 4 to make Chicago’s path to a come-from-behind victory a little easier.

It’s hard to keep track of where the Wind has travelled so far this season. They’ve breezed toward commanding victories, and they’ve stormed their way to close losses. But after two weeks of toppling over some of the league’s strongest opponents, they’re once again proving that it’s no fun getting caught in the Chicago Wind.

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