Photo of Women's Singles Champion Amy Wang of UCLA. Photo Credit to NCTTA.

By Michael Reff and Shaquila Sarapao
NCTTA Media Committee

New champions were crowned in both the Women’s and Men’s Singles events at the 2023 NCTTA Championships in Round Rock, Texas. Amy Wang of UCLA overcame Zhen Deng of Texas Wesleyan 4-1 to clinch her third title of the Champs along with the Women’s Teams and Women’s Doubles crowns, whereas Nikhil Kumar of California likewise defeated 2018 Men's Singles winner Kai Zhang of USC (formerly of Binghamton) at the same margin of 4-1.

The first seed in Women’s Singles, Wang had relatively smooth sailing until reaching the semifinals, where she faced strong opposition from second seeded Zhen Deng’s teammate Jiaqi Lin. Ultimately Wang closed it out at 4-2.

On the other end of the draw, Deng did not drop a single set until reaching the finals against Wang. There, it was a rematch from the Women’s Teams finals, where Wang had defeated Deng 3-0. In the final, Deng’s pips appeared to briefly frustrate Wang. However, she adapted and repeated her dominance of the Women’s events with a third title at 4-1 in sets.

On the Men’s Singles side of the draw, both Kumar (#2) and Zhang (#1) did not drop a single game until reaching the semifinals. Kumar’s match against Nathan Xu of Penn went the full distance where Kumar secured the win at 11-4 in the 7th deciding set.

Zhang faced NYU’s Jeremy Hazin, who had already won the Men’s Doubles and Coed Teams events. This was also a closely contested match, with Hazin winning the first two games 11-8 and 11-6, hitting strong forehands to Zhang’s forehand as well as blocking effectively. Zhang was down 2-0 then won 4 consecutive games, bringing him for redemption in the finals.
Both Men’s semifinals games exhibited matchups of lefties against righties.

In the finals, Kumar commanded a convincing lead at 11-2 in the first game and later, winning the next two sets to arrive at 3-0. An exciting moment in the finals showed Kumar with five match points in the fourth set and Zhang battled his way back to secure seven consecutive points to win and delay defeat at 12-10. Finally, Kumar reversed the scores in the fifth set, securing the match and Men’s Singles titles.

Congratulations to Amy Wang and Nikhil Kumar, the new NCTTA Women’s and Men’s Singles Champs!

About 2023 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, PongSpace, Major League Table Tennis.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 14th on champs.nctta.org

About NCTTA

The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org