Only one test remains before Championship Weekend.
Three Major League Table Tennis (MLTT) teams have already booked their tickets to Fremont, Calif. Four already know they’ll be watching the action on Table Tennis TV. As for the other three? They’ll all know their fate by Sunday.
The Princeton Revolution, the New York Slice and the Atlanta Blazers are still eligible to make the playoffs, but none have earned that spot yet. Princeton and Atlanta will fight for that spot in Week 13, and New York hopes that neither team snatches what’s currently theirs.
They’ll be joined by the Florida Crocs and the Portland Paddlers, who can use Week 15 to fulfill opposite aspirations. For the final four teams whose seasons are not yet over, they will have a chance to shape not just Season 3, but the next several seasons afterward.
In the Balance
The Princeton Revolution have a simple task: score at least 35 points in their final three matches.
If they do, they will almost certainly earn the last playoff spot of Season 3. If they don’t, that spot will likely remain with the New York Slice, the East Division’s current No. 2 team.
Neither team hoped to be in this position a few weeks ago. The Princeton Revolution had a pathway to separating themselves from the rest of their division in Week 13, only to lose all three of their matches in Hollywood, Fla., that weekend. The New York Slice could have taken the first East Division playoff spot this weekend, but they instead ended up on the losing end of Carolina’s clinching celebration. Week 15 is the final chance for New York and Princeton to earn that playoff spot that could have been theirs, and their sole opportunity to avoid having their missteps dictate their season.
“We try to take our opportunities as much as we can,” Revolution coach Mathias Habesohn said, “And at the end of the weekend, we will see what's happening.”
Princeton isn’t the only team playing for something this weekend. The Portland Paddlers may have already clinched a spot in the playoffs, but they are just 11 points away from securing the league’s top seed. A single win this weekend would bring the Paddlers over that hump, a goal that seems attainable for a team that hasn’t lost a single match in 2026.
That doesn’t mean the Paddlers are slowing down. They’ve been thinking about earning that No. 1 seed all week, and they plan on playing this weekend with the same intensity that earned them this chance to begin with.
“We have been talking about [the No. 1 seed] a lot,” Portland’s Hampus Nordberg said on Friday. “We have a good opportunity to get us into the history books of MLTT.”
Spoiler Alert?
Even considering the rocky road that most expansion teams have to travel in their first years, this season has been tough for the Atlanta Blazers. They started their season with a 0-5 record, one that likely would have increased if not for some Golden Game heroics in Week 6. The Blazers started finding their footing in the matches that came afterward, but absences of key players such as Yuya Oshima, Jeet Chandra and Kayama Yu prevented them from fully capitalizing on their growth.
And yet, the Atlanta Blazers are still in contention for that final postseason spot. Not that it’ll be easy. They need to score at least 59 out of 63 available points without Chandra, Andrea Todorovic or Rachel Sung. If they manage that number, Princeton can still eliminate them by scoring at least 41 points. Given how badly Princeton wants that spot, they aren’t going to make that road easy for Atlanta. Regardless, expect Atlanta to claw and fight for that chance, just as they’ve done throughout the second half of Season 3.
If they don’t end up making the playoffs, Atlanta can still use this weekend to boost its position in MLTT’s Season 4 Draft Lottery on April 7. The same can be said for the Florida Crocs, who lost Liam Pitchford to a season-ending hip injury in September and have already been eliminated from postseason contention. Both teams could earn the No. 1 pick and select Quadri Aruna, Takuya Jin or any one of the league’s top incoming draft prospects.
But they wouldn’t join an empty team. Despite their records, both Atlanta and Florida have some of the most talented players in the league. Week 15 could increase their chances of adding even more talent to their rosters, which would set them up for several years of success going forward.
Active Rosters
Princeton Revolution
Florida Crocs
Portland Paddlers
Atlanta Blazers
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