Smashed it! David McBeath helps Texas to historic MLTT triumph

David McBeath played a starring role as his Texas Smash team stormed to victory in the inaugural season of Major League Table Tennis.

Smash had clinched a place in the four-team Championship play-offs after finishing second in the West Division, only sealing their place on the final weekend of the regular season in Wichita, Kansas.

Pictures by Jesse Levi Hummell

They faced East Division champions Carolina Gold Rush in the semi-finals in Chicago, their opponents featuring both the male and female Most Valuable Players (MVP) in the league, Enzo Angles and Hong Lin.

McBeath led his team out, defeating Romain Lorentz 3-0 (11-4, 11-9, 11-9) in the first match, but Carolina levelled as Kai Zhang beat Nandan Naresh 3-0 (11-4, 11-10, 11-7).

In the doubles, Smash duo Hiromitsu Kasahara & Amy Wang defeated the two MVPs 2-1 (11-8, 10-11, 11-9) to put Texas 5-4 up.

Yoan Rebetez extended the lead to 8-4 by defeating Jeremy Hazin 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 11-8), but Angles won 3-0 (11-7, 11-10, 11-8) against Kasahara to leave Texas 8-7 up and with a one-point head start going into the golden game, in which all five players on each side alternate every four points until one team reaches 21 points.

This time, McBeath was last up, and was handed his place on the table with his side 8-4 up. He won two of his four points to make it 10-6 overall.

That lead had been extended to 19-13 when McBeath was next on the table and, after losing the first point, a superb backhand flick on receive, followed by a backhand down-the-line winner made it 21-14 and put his team into the final.

They faced Princeton Revolution, who defeated West Division winners Bay Area Blasters 21-11 in the other semi-final, meaning the champions would be one of the divisional runners-up from regular season.

Smash made a storming start, Kasahara beating Jishan Liang 3-0 (11-7, 11-4, 11-5), and Naresh defeating Kanamitsu Koyo 2-1 (11-7, 9-11, 11-8).

When Kasahara & Wang won the doubles against Liang & Angela Guan 3-0 (11-10, 11-6, 11-4), it was 8-1 to Smash.

Mathieu De Saintilan bt Rebetez 2-1 (11-1, 11-10, 8-11) to reduce the deficit to 9-3, but McBeath then defeated Jinxin Wang 2-1 (7-11, 11-7, 11-10). He was 9-10 down in third but saved the game point and won the golden point at 10-10 on an edge.

That meant Smash had a seven-point lead to start the golden game, and they quickly extended that to 11-1 by the time McBeath came on court.

The Englishman continued the blistering pace, winning all four points against De Saintilan to put Smash on the verge of the title. They went on to win 21-7 to seal the Championship. Third place went to Bay Area, beating Carolina 21-18.

Afterwards, David said: “I’m over the moon. It’s been a tough season, I think at one point (in the regular season) we were fourth, we climbed up to second, then down to third and out of the play-offs. We snuck in in Wichita and here we are with a Championship trophy.

“We felt good coming into the final, everyone was relaxed and there weren’t any visible nerves and the start Hiro gave us was more than we could have asked for.”

Smashed it! David McBeath helps Texas to historic MLTT triumph Table Tennis England.