The First Ever Chicago Table Tennis League Nears the End of Its Season With Only a Few Matches Remaining
Courtesy of Engelbert Solis
Just a few months back the Chicago Table Tennis League began its first ever season with high hopes. The League featured two different leagues, the Edgeball League and the Chicago League, that would compete amongst themselves and each other. Each week, the teams faced a different opponent and points were tallied for both the team and the individual player.
At the end of the competition season, Playoffs begin. The Playoffs use a knockout system and include two Wild Card matches, the semifinals, and the finals. For the Wild Card matches, the second best team from the Edgeball League plays the third best from the Chicago league, and vice versa. Going into the semis, the winner of the Wild Card will play against the highest ranked team in either the Edgeball or Chicago League. The finals will be between the victors of the semis.
Coming down to the last straw, some of the top teams and players have come to light. With only a few weeks of Playoffs remaining, the list of top teams keeps shrinking. The top three players with the most points are, in order, Lukasz Fita USATT rating 2280 (106 points), Artur Kurek USATT rating 2278 (88 points) and Maria Kretschmer USATT rating 2204 (83 points). Lukasz Niewiarowski USATT rating 2156 and Wojciech Wolski USATT rating 2319 are tied for fourth place with 81 points each and Michael Wolski USATT rating 2206 takes fifth place with 77 points.
The final team standings are as follows: The top three teams in order from the Chicago League are Experior, Becker Logistics and CCG. The top three teams in order from the Edgeball League are EJ Plumbing, GO2 and AMZ Trucking.
The first Wild Card match will be between Becker Logistics and AMZ Trucking. It will be held on Monday, March 14th at 7pm. During their regular season encounter on January 12, 2016, AMZ beat Becker Logistics 5 – 1 with the lone victory from Becker coming from Pawel Gluchowski beating Haibin Huang 3 – 0. However, one of Becker’s top players, Mariya Bogoeva did not play making Becker severely handicapped. It will be interesting to see whether she can make a difference in the outcome.
The other Wild Card match is between GO2 and CCG. Their only previous encounter was on December 21, 2015. GO2 fielded their best players and beat CCG 5 – 1. Expect both teams to play their best players to avoid ending their season.
During the weeks prior to the playoffs, the teams had to compete against tough opponents to earn their spots in the top three. Close contestants for the top three were TGL and Edge TT.
Overall, the first season of the Chicago Table Tennis League turned out to be an extremely successful one, and the next season is being awaited with great enthusiasm from new teams excited to compete.
For more information, visit www.edgeballtabletennis.com.
