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Table tennis protégé Kheith Rhynne Cruz made history as the first Pinoy to be drafted in the Major League Table Tennis (MLTT)– the first professional table tennis league in the US based in New Jersey.
Cruz, the 2023 World Youth Contender under-19 champion, was picked by the Bay Area Blasters as 22nd overall in last week’s rookie drafting for the league’s second conference set to start on the first week of September.
Over 300 players from 53 countries have joined the drafting, showcasing the league’s rapid growth and awareness on the international stage.
The Bay Area is one of the four teams comprising the West Division. The others are Portland Paddlers, Seattle Spinners, and Texas Smash. The East Division are Carolina Gold Rush, Chicago Wind, Florida Crocs, and Princestone Revolution.
“Di nasayang ang sacrifices niya. Malaki ang pasasalamat naming sa lahat ng tumulong at sumuporta sa amin. Sa TATAND, kay Sir Charlie (Lim). Sa Joola, kay Sir Philip (Uy) at sa lahat nang nagdarasal para sa anak ko,” said Cruz mother Vinessa Baldemor-Cruz.
The 17-year-old Cruz, the Philippines’ No.1 women’s player and currently World ranked No. 307, is still in Thailand where she was competing in the Southeast Asian Regional Olympic Qualifying in Bangkok. She made it to the Final Four in the women’s match but lost a tight 3-4 decision (11-13, 7-11, 9-11, 14-12, 12-10, 11-8, 6-11) to a much older rival Khanh Nguyen of Vietnam.
The Bay Area Blasters are the only team from the West division to beat a team from the East in regular season play in the inaugural season. Headed by Chinese-American Jinbao Ma, Tao Wenzhang, and Lily Zhang, the Blasters held the top spot in their division with a record 12-10 (237 points). In the playoffs, they lost to Princeton (11-12) and won against Carolina (21-18) to claim third place.
England’s Liam Pitchford was selected as the No. 1 overall pick by the Florida Crocs. He follows France’s Enzo Angles, who was the No. 1 overall pick by the Carolina Gold Rush in the league’s inaugural draft in 2023, and who subsequently went on to be named the league’s Men’s MVP for the 2023-24 season.
Other noted names in the international table tennis community to be drafted are France’s Emmanuel Lebesson (Chicago Wind), Slovakia’s Ľubomír Pištej (Seattle Spinners), Sweden’s Hampus Nordberg (Portland Paddlers), Japan’s Satoshi Aida (Carolina Gold Rush), South Korea’s Taehyun Kim (Bay Area Blasters), China’s Wensheng Wei (Princeton Revolution), and Iran’s Amir Hodaei (Texas Smash).
The league allowed teams to retain as many players as they wanted from their eight-person roster for MLTT’s first season, which concluded on April 28 when Texas defeated Princeton in the first-ever championship game. Chicago and Portland retained the fewest with three apiece, while Princeton retained the most with 6. The result was 31 openings across the league for a draft field.
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