Bay Area’s Jinbao Ma (2740) has been named Major League Table Tennis’ Player of the Week for Week 8, in line with a recent change to how many players can earn this award after one week.
Ma is the second player in MLTT history to be named the sole recipient of a Player of the Week award, following Emmanuel Lebesson’s (2758) nine-win performance during Week 7. League sources tell Table Tennis TV that this precedent will continue going forward, and that MLTT will move away from the traditional Men’s and Women’s Player of the Week.
Ma won eight of his nine singles games during Week 8, all of which came in Singles 1. His only loss of the weekend was an 11-7 nailbiter to Atlanta’s Yuya Oshima (2775) on Sunday, which came after he swept New York’s Koki Niwa (2753) on Friday and Los Angeles’ Ľubomír Pištej (2717) on Saturday.
This impressive performance came just one match week after Ma left Broward Table Tennis Club (Week 7) without having won a single game.
“I think his motivation was high,” Blasters coach Tim Wang told Table Tennis TV. “I think everyone knows what kind of player he can play as.”
Those eight wins boosted Ma’s power rating to 686.9, which is the 41st-highest score in the league as of Wednesday. Ma now holds a 16-20 (44.4%) record in singles for the season.
Ma is the third different Blaster to receive this award this season, following Elsayed Lashin (Weeks 1 and 6) and Lily Zhang (Week 6). He is the longest-tenured member of his team, having been with the Blasters since they took him with their second-round pick in the inaugural MLTT Draft.
The Blasters finished Week 8 with a 2-1 record, having defeated the New York Slice (7-5, 121 points) 18-3 and the Los Angeles Spinners (4-8, 114 points) 16-5 before falling 8-13 to the Atlanta Blazers (2-7, 75 points). They now sit as the West Division’s fourth seed with a 5-7 record and 117 points.
Ma and the Blasters will next play during Week 12 in Pleasanton, Calif., where they will host the Princeton Revolution (4-5, 97 points), Texas Smash (4-2, 71 points) and Carolina Gold Rush (4-2, 61 points) from Feb. 13-15.
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