The New York Slice (6-3, 101 points) have placed Amir Hodaei (SPINDEX: 2697) on the Commissioner’s Reserve List for the remainder of Season 3 due to visa issues.

The Slice will add free agent Jessica Reyes Lai (2362) to their active roster as a corresponding move.

Hodaei’s addition to the Commissioner’s Reserve List comes one month after the Los Angeles Spinners (2-7, 79 points) released Amirreza Abbasi (2663), who faced similar visa challenges based on his country of origin.

Hodaei was one of five players the New York Slice selected in the 2025 MLTT Expansion Draft, in addition to Tao Wenzhang (2708), Haocheng Wang (2690), Jishan Liang (2693) and Kaden Xu (2690). He was the only one of those five players who had yet to make his Slice debut.

The Texas Smash (4-2, 74 points) selected Hodaei with their first-round pick (eighth overall) in the 2024 MLTT Draft, and he ended his rookie year as the league’s No. 44 player. Hodaei earned a 16-32 record in singles (33.3%), a 1-5 record in doubles (16.7%) and a 62-50 record in Golden Game appearances (55%) last season.

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Reyes Lai is the No. 89 Women’s Singles player in the world, the fourth-highest ranking of any American woman. She was a quarterfinalist at the ITTF Pan-American Championships Rock Hill 2025, and she advanced to the Round of 32 at WTT United States Smash 2025.

Reyes Lai is a member of the 2025 United States Women’s National Team, which also features Bay Area’s Lily Zhang (2587) and Texas’ Amy Wang (2579). At the 2025 USA Table Tennis National Championships in early July, she and Portland’s Sid Naresh (2683) tied for third place in Mixed Doubles.

Reyes Lai is the second woman on the Slice’s roster alongside two-time Women’s Player of the Week winner Haeeun Choi (2575). This will be Reyes Lai’s first time on an MLTT roster, but she is not expected to compete in her new team’s upcoming Week 8 matches.

The East-leading Slice will face the Bay Area Blasters (3-6, 75 points), Atlanta Blazers (1-5, 46 points) and hometown Spinners from Dec. 12-14 in Los Angeles. All three matches will be streamed exclusively on Table Tennis TV, and can be accessed on tabletennis.tv, iOS, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV.

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