FREMONT, Calif. — The Chicago Wind defeated the Princeton Revolution 21-16 in Major League Table Tennis’s (MLTT’s) third-place match on Sunday.
The Wind played from behind throughout most of Sunday’s match, but they stormed back in the Golden Game to earn a top-three placement for the first time in team history.
“I think we had an amazing season,” Wind coach Eric Owens said. “It’s the best overall finish for the city of Chicago, but there’s an undertone of disappointment in a way, because we wanted to come out on top.”
The Wind lost 17-21 on Saturday to the Carolina Gold Rush, MLTT’s defending champions, despite a strong comeback bid in the second half of the match. A few hours earlier, the Revolution lost a back-and-forth battle between the depleted Portland Paddlers 19-21.
Chicago’s Robert Gardos (SPINDEX: 2810) started the match with an 11-3 victory over Princeton’s Benedek Olah (2771) in the first game of Singles 1. Olah then took the next two games over the Season 3 Men’s MVP to put the Revolution up 2-1.
Jiangshan Guo (2557) extended Princeton’s lead to 5-1 with a three-game sweep (11-8, 11-8, 11-4) over Mo Zhang (2566) in Singles 2. Guo’s sweep over the Season 2 Women’s MVP put the Revolution on a five-game winning streak heading into Doubles.
Chicago headed into Doubles desperate for a boost, and they received exactly that from Jeongwoo Park (2803) and Sean Zhang (2657). They won two of three games from Cho Seungmin (2815) and Koyo Kanamitsu (2670) to put the cut Princeton’s lead to
Park kept his momentum in Singles 3, winning the first two games of Singles 3 (11-5, 11-5) against Princeton’s Jinxin Wang (2721). Wang took the third game 11-8, but Park still ended Singles 3 with a match score of 7-5.
Cho and Emmanuel Lebesson (2790) took the table in Singles 4 to determine which team would head into the Golden Game with a lead. Lebesson cut the Revolution’s lead to one point after an 11-6 first game victory, but Cho won the next two games (11-9, 11-3) to extend that lead to 8-6.
The Revolution and Wind traded points throughout the Golden Game, and the score remained within five points throughout much of it. Both teams went back and forth until Park scored the winning point against Wang.
The Wind will now transition their focus to Season 4 and the upcoming offseason. The Wind are expected to return most of their third-place winning roster, and look to build upon the chemistry they’ve built throughout the season.
“I think everybody was excited to come back [for Season 4],” Owens said. “Everyone’s been excited all year. We want to do this again."
This is the Wind’s third victory over the Revolution in Season 3, having defeated the Revolution 7-1. The Wind took down the Revolution 7-14 in their Week 4 match, and 11-10 when they faced off in Week 6.
The result of this match locks two more picks in the Season 4 MLTT Draft. The Revolution will select with the seventh overall pick, and the Wind will pick eighth.
MLTT will conclude Season 3 with its Championship Match between the Portland Paddlers and Carolina Gold Rush. That match will be streamed exclusively to Table Tennis TV, which can be accessed on TableTennis.TV, iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV.
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