Carolina’s Chen Sun (SPINDEX: 2604) has been named the Women’s Most Valuable Player for Major League Table Tennis’s third season.
Bay Area’s Lily Zhang (2606) finished second in voting for Women’s MVP this season, and Portland’s Kotomi Omoda (2599) finished third.
Sun’s victory makes her the fourth member of the Carolina Gold Rush to win an MLTT MVP award. She becomes the second player to win Women’s MVP for the Gold Rush, following Hong Lin’s award in Season 1.
“I’m incredibly honored to be named this season’s MVP,” Sun said. “It’s a dream come true.”
Sun finished Season 3 as the league’s highest-ranked woman on its official power rankings list at No. 7. She finished with a Singles percentage of (71.4%), a Golden Game percentage of 60.9% (53-34), a 764.9 power rating and 30 Singles wins, while leading all women in the latter three categories.
The Carolina Gold Rush selected Sun with the 20th overall selection in the Season 3 MLTT Draft. During her first season with MLTT, Sun became one of two women to win multiple Player of the Week Awards (Week 2 and Week 13) on her way to leading the Carolina Gold Rush to its third consecutive appearance at Championship Weekend.
“Honestly, the best part was doing it with my team,” Sun said. “Every win felt like ours, not just mine.”
Women’s MVP runner-up Lily Zhang finished Season 3 with a league-leading Singles percentage of 77.8% (28-8), and she became the first woman to ever top MLTT’s official power rankings list in Week 7. Third-place winner Kotomi Omoda finished her season with a Singles percentage of 64.4% (29-16) as the primary Singles 2 player for the Portland Paddlers, MLTT’s record champions.
The Women’s MVP was chosen by the ten MLTT coaches (50% of the total vote), as well as five members of MLTT’s official broadcast (50% of the total vote). Each voter took into consideration a player’s individual stats, all-around performance and team record while filling out their ballots.
All voters submitted their top three candidates for Women’s MVP, with each first choice receiving five points, each second choice receiving three points and each third choice receiving one point. Coaches were informed that they could not vote for players on their own team.
Sun and the Gold Rush will face the Chicago Wind during Championship Weekend’s semifinal round on April 18 at Table Tennis Academy in Fremont, Calif. This match will start at 4:30 p.m. EDT, and will be streamed live on Table Tennis TV.
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