University of California at San Diego Hosts 2018 West Regional Championships
This weekend on the campus of University of California at San Diego table tennis players and schools from all over California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and even Canada (via British Columbia) will partake in the 2018 West Regional Championships! Don’t miss out on all of the fun; the event is being live streamed here (linked below).
Pictured above are UC San Diego's women's team poised to pull off some big wins!
College Table Tennis National Championship qualification is on the line; qualifying teams will be the top three men’s/coed teams, the top 2 women's teams, the top 8 men's singles, and the top 4 women’s singles. The iSET 2018 National Collegiate Table Tennis Championships is NCTTA’s premier event and is the Super Bowl and World Cup of Collegiate Table Tennis rolled into one!
The West Region, encompassing a number of US States and a Canadian Province, contains some very strong contenders in all categories. Ryan Hsu, NCTTA West Regional Director, says about the strongest schools, “Two very strong contenders from Northern California (UC Davis and UC Berkeley) have a bunch of very high level players. Berkeley and Davis finished 1st and 2nd respectively in NCTTA Northern California Division.”
Hsu continues, “I think the rest of the region is also fairly strong but in terms of team ratings both Northern California schools are above 11k which none of the other schools comes close to.”
Northern California is no stranger to high quality table tennis with several stand alone table tennis facilities cropping up in the past couple of years. US National team has that area to thank as well, for producing stars like Ariel Hsing (former Princeton standout) and Lily Zhang (current UC Berkeley standout).
Look for the incredible Men’s/Coed and Women’s Team table tennis rivalry between UC Davis and Berkeley. Both schools feature very strong student athletes in each event. UC Davis features a brother and sister team of Kunal and Aditi Chodri as well. That dynamic should play into something very interesting if they are asked to play doubles! Coach Danny Yip of UC Davis may have some tricks up his sleeve, so tune in to see how it ends up!
Men’s and Women’s singles feature incredible athletes including the aforementioned Kunal Chodri, Teddy Tran (both former USA Junior team members) and Lily Zhang, 2016 US Olympic team player and also a favorite to lead her team in both Women’s teams as well as Women’s Singles. In addition to Zhang another player to watch is Zhang's teammate, Berkeley Rookie sensation Angela Guan, who featured an off the table defense style.
NCTTA West Regionals kicks off Saturday morning pacific time. Here is the schedule and livestream:
2018 NCTTA West Regional Championship - Coed Teams, Women's Singles (Day 1)
Saturday, February 24 - 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM Pacific time
https://www.youtube.com/embed/3oc2X2C07TU
2018 NCTTA West Regional Championship - Women's Teams, Men's Singles (Day 2)
Sunday, February 25 - 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM Pacific time