After winning regional events in co-ed, women's, and singles, Penn’s club table tennis team is advancing to table tennis nationals.
Penn’s club table tennis team competed in the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association Pennsylvania division on Feb. 4 and the Mid-Atlantic regional division on Feb. 18. The team defeated University of Maryland, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, and Duke University at Mid-Atlantic regionals in Atlanta.
The team's performance earned them a spot at the NCTTA National College Table Tennis Championships in Round Rock, Texas on April 14. Penn’s team is also the highest-ranked team in the Mid-Atlantic region in both the singles and women’s subcategories.
At the regional tournament, the team lost only to University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
This season, Penn won all the events in the Pennsylvania division, winning events for the co-ed team, women’s team, men’s singles, and women’s singles. At regionals, the women’s team placed first, and team members placed first and second in men’s singles, as well as second in women’s singles.
Members of the team attribute this success to a combination of factors, including a number of strong recruits as well as continued efforts by club management to maintain training practices.
“This year we got two new players, three including me, and they are really strong and [some] have represented their home countries before,” College freshman and team member Rachel Ou said, alluding to the fact that “luck” had been on Penn’s side with recruiting this year.
In addition, Engineering sophomore and team captain Cheryl Lim mentioned new and improved training strategies. Lim said new players benefited from these training practices, which exposed them to tournament-caliber competition.
“We tried to incorporate more training events; club management decided to run some training events to help the team better prepare for our tournaments,” Lim said.
Competing with high-caliber players, however, is not a first for Penn’s table tennis team or its members. The team has qualified for nationals before in 2017, and a member participated in Olympic trials as well as junior Olympic competitions.
Tze Ling Ng, a Masters student in the College of Liberal and Professional Studies and team member, described how the team environment is more than a club.
“It’s exciting because I think, for me, the fun thing about competing now is not so much the actual competition…I’m doing table-tennis more for the sense of community,” Ng said.
Along those lines, players expressed enthusiasm about their journeys in table tennis and experience with the sport.
Ou said that table tennis is often viewed as a “recreational” sport, but it can get “really competitive.” She added that the club is not only for advanced players.
“We have players of all levels, so it’s pretty easy to find someone to play with,” Lim said.
Ou, Lim, and Ng said that they are proud of their performance thus far and are looking forward to more success at nationals. As of now, the team is ranked tenth nationally and travels to Round Rock, Texas for nationals in mid-April.
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