(by Steve Hopkins, photo MLTT)

Major League Table Tennis moves to the ULH Event Center in Houston, Texas, next weekend, October 30 – November 1.  This will be Week 4 of Season 4. The host Texas Smash will be joined by the Carolina Gold Rush, Chicago Wind, and Atlanta Blazers. Tickets are available now at mltt.com.

The Carolina Gold Rush is the only team in Houston that has not played yet – just a quirk of the current schedule that will remedy itself as the season progresses. The Gold Rush reached the MLTT Cup final last season before falling to Portland in a tight 21-18 match.  They open their season a little later than the other teams, but their expectations for the year are maxed out.

Texas arrives with a home “field” advantage and some momentum. The Smash went 2-1 in Westchester, beating New York and pulling off the comeback of the season against Atlanta – scoring the last five points of the Golden Game to win it 21-20. Hiromitsu Kasahara, Nandan Naresh, and David McBeath all won singles matches for Texas in Week 3.

Chicago is 3-3 after splitting its first two weekends. Robert Gardos, Mo Zhang, Emmanuel Lebesson, and Sean Zhang give the Wind one of the deepest lineups in the league, and Chicago bounced back from a Friday loss in Willowbrook to win its last two matches there.

Atlanta comes in at 2-4 and is hoping for a strong showing this weekend. Quadri Aruna, Woojin Kim, and Kayama Yu have carried the Blazers in singles, but Atlanta has lost three Golden Games, and two of those resulted in squandering leads that they took into the finale.

Two rematches stand out. Atlanta beat Chicago in the season opener in Duluth, and the two meet again on Saturday afternoon. Texas and Chicago, both in the West Division, open the weekend’s evening session on Friday.

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