PORTLAND, Ore. — There’s a new top-ranked player in Major League Table Tennis (MLTT). His name is Jens Lundqvist (SPINDEX: 2787).

Just two match weeks after Chicago’s Emmanuel Lebesson (2758) became the third player to win nine singles games in one weekend, Lundqvist grew dangerously close to becoming the fourth. Only an 8-11 loss to Los Angeles’s Alexandre Robinot (2726) on Sunday stood between Lundqvist and an immaculate Week 9.

But Lundqvist’s week won’t be remembered for that one loss. It’ll be remembered for his eight wins. It’ll be remembered for his unbelievable return from his four-month absence. It’ll be remembered for how much it added to the Portland Paddlers’ (10-2, 169 points) overwhelming lead over the West Division.

“We love to have Jens on the team,” Paddlers coach Christian Lillieroos told Table Tennis TV. “It’s a great help.”

Their division rivals certainly tried to snatch that top spot for themselves, and they had every opportunity to do so during the Paddlers’ two-month hiatus. But none of them have been able to dethrone the Paddlers, who became the first team this season to secure multiple undefeated weekends. And if that wasn’t sweet enough, all six of those wins came in front of a passionate home crowd at the Oregon Convention Center.

The Paddlers’ second homestand of the season looked a lot like the first. On Friday, an emphatic 13-8 win over the Smash to widen the gap between the then-top two seeds. On Saturday, a 16-5 victory against a Blazers team playing their best match of the season. And on Sunday, a 15-6 win against the Los Angeles Spinners to extend their home record to an undefeated, unfathomable 6-0.

The Paddlers won all those matches with a roster that’s changed significantly since their inaugural season. For the first time in team history, the Paddlers started into a weekend without rostering any of Jiwei Xia (2607), Kou Lei (2783) or Rachel Sung (2505), the first three draft picks in club history. But they can’t get rid of them that easily. All three players made the trip to Portland … but on other teams. Sung won one game against Kotomi Omoda (2572) on Sunday, Xia and Kayama Yu (2786) got the better of Naresh and Kumar on Sunday, and Lei took two of three from Kim on Sunday.

But these former teammates still have a bond that transcends the color of their jerseys. Nikhil Kumar (2760) joined Table Tennis TV’s post-match interview with Xia on Saturday, just to confirm that his former teammate played “out of his mind” on Saturday. Omoda and Sung went shopping right before they faced off on Saturday. Kumar claimed that he and Sung “grew up together,” and that their friendship of 17 years hasn’t changed with a single trade. 

The Paddlers have Xia, Lei and Sung to thank for building their identity, but they will be thanking Lundqvist, Kumar, Omoda and the rest of their new-look roster if they reach their first-ever championship weekend.

‍

Los Angeles Spinners‍

The first type of MLTT rookie is the player who struggles in the Golden Game. It’s easy for a player who’s always seen “11” as their magic number to feel overwhelmed at a race to 21. And for those who don’t always face a team’s best players, having to contribute to such a high-pressure part of a match can be an incredibly difficult adjustment.

The other type of MLTT rookie is Marcos Madrid (2632).

The Spinners did not enter any of their Golden Games with a lead this weekend. That was before Madrid scored 17 Golden Game points against Texas’s Anirban Ghosh (2575), Atlanta’s Braxton Chang (2543) and Portland’s Hampus Nordberg (2732). Madrid’s stellar performance in the final game of each match guided the Spinners to two of three wins this weekend, and singlehandedly turned a clear Paddlers win into an uncomfortable, narrow win. 

Every team needs a capable Golden Game performer, someone they can trust when the lights are brightest. And for the Spinners, Madrid is rapidly emerging as Los Angeles’ golden boy.

“Marcos learned a lot through the season,” Spinners coach Romain Lorentz said. “He’s really going forward and trying to win the points, and not waiting for an opening.” 

They couldn’t have won all of those matches without their strong showings prior to the Golden Game. Alexandre Robinot won three of nine singles games and four of six doubles games, earned himself a Player of the Week nomination and became the only player to topple Jens Lundqvist all weekend. Aditya Sareen (2680) won four of six singles games, which were his first singles games of the season. Those performances helped the Spinners secure a winning weekend before Sunday even began.

And on Sunday, they had an opportunity to come out of Portland with a perfect record, but it wouldn’t be easy. They’d have to face the Portland Paddlers, the top seed in the West Division. They’d have to face Nikhil Kumar, whom they sent to the Paddlers in the first trade in MLTT history. And that’s when the magic stopped for the Spinners. A late comeback in the Golden Game wasn’t enough. Kumar roared alongside the Portland crowd after scoring the Golden Game’s 21st point against Sareen, his old teammate.

Regardless of what happened on Sunday, the Spinners can use this weekend as fuel for a late playoff push. That’d be a tall order for the fifth seed in the West, but this weekend proved that they have no intentions of giving up. They hope to make it to championship weekend, and they will fight for a ticket until that day arrives.

“That’s the reason why we keep fighting,” Spinners coach Romain Lorentz said. “We just have to have no regrets and really keep fighting [for] every point, and then we’ll see at the end of the season.”

Texas Smash

The Texas Smash (4-5, 98 points) entered Week 9 as the second-seeded team in the West, in immense danger of losing its spot. They were the sole team with only two weekends of action this season, and just one result could completely shake up the West Division with that small of a sample size. That shakeup needed to be in their favor. With the Chicago Wind (8-4, 145 points), Bay Area Blasters (5-6, 117 points) and Los Angeles Spinners (6-9, 146 points) right on their tail, this was the Smash’s chance to remind them which team holds that coveted playoff spot.

They lost that spot this week. 

The Smash opened their week with an unfortunate, but bearable 8-13 loss to the Paddlers on Friday. Things became less bearable and far more unfortunate when they fell 8-13 to the Spinners, their fifth-seeded division rival, on Saturday. And the worst-case scenario for Smash fans came true on Sunday, when they lost another match 8-13, this time against the Blazers, the team with the lowest winning percentage in the league. 

Texas hopes to put its winless weekend behind it, but it might have to do so without star rookie Joao Monteiro (2746) for the immediate future. Monteiro suffered a lower back injury in Saturday’s Golden Game, which ruled him out during Sunday’s loss to the Spinners. It’s not clear whether Monteiro will return in time for his team’s Week 10 opener on Friday, and without him, it will be much harder for Texas to prove that their successful first half wasn’t a fluke.

If there’s one thing that’s not a fluke, it’s Hiromitsu Kasahara’s (2834) performance this season. When a player has a 20-7 (74.1%) record in singles, a 6-6 (50%) record in doubles, and a Men’s Player of the Week Award halfway through a season, it’s safe to say they’re having a pretty good year. Even by those standards, Kasahara’s Week 9 was special. Eight singles wins, with his only loss occurring after a golden point. Two doubles wins alongside two different partners. A nomination for Player of the Week, which was well-deserved after putting on the best three-game stretch of his season so far.

But as Kasahara rises to superstardom, the Smash fall to the No. 3 seed in their third consecutive weekend without their coach, Jorg Bitzigeio, on the sideline. They sit outside of the top two for the first time all season, but they have plenty of chances to make it back there. The Paddlers are set to compete from Weeks 10 through 12 to make up for their lack of action. And with their playoff spot no longer a guarantee, they’re now more motivated than ever to use those weeks to move on from a weekend they hope never happens again.

‍

Atlanta Blazers‍

At the table, this wasn’t a very impactful weekend for the Atlanta Blazers (3-9, 101 points). They opened their weekend with a 5-16 loss to the Los Angeles Spinners before suffering an 8-13 defeat at the hands of the Portland Paddlers. And though they defeated the Texas Smash 13-8, the Blazers are too far behind the rest of the East Division for one win to make a true difference.

But away from the table, this match meant everything to a few of their players.

If you tuned in to Saturday night’s match between the Blazers and hometown Portland Paddlers, you might have assumed it went down at Gas South Convention Center in Duluth, Ga. That’s how loud the crowd cheered for the Blazers that night. And that’s how strong a chokehold Jiwei Xia has on the city of Portland.

Xia’s name is almost interchangeable with Portland table tennis. He was the Paddlers’ first-ever draft pick, and he spent two seasons with the team before the Blazers picked him in the Season 3 Expansion Draft. And even though he’s no longer a Paddler, he still lives in the city with his family and maintains his relationship with his friends he’s made through both table tennis and pickleball. That same family and friends packed the stands at the Oregon Convention Center for Xia’s first-ever away match in his hometown, wearing orange, chanting his name and erupting after every Blazers point.

He didn’t disappoint that crowd. Xia and Kayama Yu won two of three doubles games against Nikhil Kumar and Sid Naresh, which gave the Blazers the lead heading into the 10-minute break. And with the crowd still chanting his name after the match, an emotional Xia told MLTT emcee Tianna Cohen that the table at Oregon Convention Center was “his court.”

At the very least, it’s the court Xia holds closest to his heart.

“Even though I’m not a Portland Paddler anymore, I still feel this is still my home court,” Xia said. “This is my hometown, so [to have] people cheering for me, my brothers, my Pickleball team, my friends, my students, I love it. Nothing better than this. Nothing.”

Xia’s former teammates were excited to see him again. As they were with Rachel Sung, who had been a Paddler until three weeks ago. The Blazers have had their eyes on Sung ever since the season began, and coach Suzi Battison approached Christian Lillieroos and asked what it would take to acquire Sung in a trade. A few weeks later, the two teams struck a deal that would send Sung to Atlanta in exchange for Minhyung Jee and a second-round draft pick in 2026.

Sung wasn’t expected to compete in her new team’s matches this week, but a late scratch to Andrea Todorovic, the Blazers’ only other woman, forced her into action. That meant with little preparation, Sung would have to face superstar Matilda Ekholm (2603), former Female Player of the Week winner Kotomi Omoda, and U.S. Olympian Amy Wang (2595) in her first weekend as a Blazer.

That’s not how Sung viewed her opponents. At the other end of the table, she saw fellow competitor Matilda Ekholm, former teammate Kotomi Omoda and UCLA classmate Amy Wang. That familiarity with her opponents helped earn her five wins on the weekend. 

“It’s nice to see a familiar face across the table,” Sung said. “So I guess in a way, that also makes it less [difficult].”

When the sun rose following Saturday’s homecoming match for Xia and Sung, the Blazers returned to the table for Jeet Chandra’s (2615) first game against Texas Smash. Chandra was a member of the West-winning Smash in Season 2 before the Blazers selected him in the Expansion Draft. He ended his reunion with one win against ex-teammate Nandan Naresh, and an appreciation for the opportunity to face the team that welcomed him to the league.

“Everyone on the Texas Smash is so nice,” Chandra said. “Even the owners, the coaches, the players, everyone was so nice to me.”

Though the Blazers left Portland with a 1-2 record, this weekend was the best they’ve ever performed. Kayama Yu stepped up in the absence of superstar Yuya Oshima (2775), winning six singles games and five doubles games. Braxton Chang scored nine Golden Game points in just his second weekend as an MLTT player. The top-seeded Paddlers squirmed in their match on Saturday, and the second-seeded Smash fell apart against them on Sunday.

The Blazers are still far away from a playoff spot as of now, but this expansion team is finally beginning to find its footing. That alone makes Week 9 a week to remember for the Blazers, but all of the cheers, hugs and catching up away from the table ensures that it will be one they’ll never forget.

‍