By Jimmy Charshafian
The Northeastern club table tennis team kicked off its season with an absolute ace, going 10-1.
The season opened at a tournament at Boston University and featured eight other schools, Northeastern won every match it played, taking first place.
Dennis Coppola, a graduate student at Northeastern and owner of a 33-15 singles record during his career, founded the team in 2000. He is back playing with his fellow teammates after sitting out since 2004.
He said he believes this year’s team is the best the school has seen in its brief history.
“We have really good players,” Coppola said. “We have a complete team. It’s not just a few guys carrying everyone.”
Senior co-captain and club president Dan Tran said the team’s success is a product of the effort and preparation the players have put in. Tran has recorded a 5-2 singles record this season and gone an undefeated 4-0 in doubles play. Since the beginning of the 2005-06 season, he is 28-10 in singles and 14-4 in doubles.
“Most of our players are good players with prior training and have played a long time. They really care about Northeastern,” Tran said.
Competitions are held in a best-of-five format with each school pitting its four highest ranked players against each other followed by one doubles match.
Northeastern competes under a national umbrella organization, the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA). They play in the New England division.
The team swept Bryant, Tufts and UConn by shutouts of 5-0 and handled Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT and UMass Amherst as well. Now 10-1, Northeastern sits in first place in its division and has 10 more matches before it can look toward the national championship tournament, which starts April 11 in Minnesota.
“We have to practice more often. Technical skill and conditioning will be huge,” Tran said. “Last year we were No. 2 in our division, we had an 8-2 record and were in the top 10 in the national rankings. This team is better. We’re excited about nationals.”
Interestingly enough, the team boasts a diverse roster. Many of Notheastern’s core players are natives of other countries, with Coppola, who is from New Jersey, being the exception.
“Most of our players are international. Kevin Portmann (a junior, originally from France,) gives us advice on everything,” Coppola said.
Portmann is 5-1, both in singles and in doubles competition this season, his first with the team. His 10 points in the singles standings are good for second in the division, and 11 doubles points are tops among individual doubles competitors.
Although the team has gotten off to a quick start, Coppola said there is still a lot of work to be done between now and April.
“We still need to compete and prove ourselves,” Coppola said.
The championships will run from the April 11 to the 13, and will feature more than 30 schools competing for national titles in singles, doubles and team events.
