Nandan Naresh and Amy Wang Lead 2023 Nationals Line Up
by Jim Short & Barbara Wei
The 2023 U.S. National Table Tennis Championships comes to Fort Worth, TX for the second year in a row. The action runs from July 3 to July 7 and promises to produce fireworks over the Independence Day holiday.
Along with national titles, men and women’s singles champions are competing for $7000 for first place, $3500 for second, and $1750 for third. Total prize money across all events tops $42,000.
On the men's side defending National Champion Nikhil Kumar is certainly a favorite. However, Nandan Naresh is the current top seed following first place finishes at both the Junior and Senior National Team Trials. He only dropped matches to Daniel Tran and Jishan Liang across both events. Nandan is also the top seed in the U-21, U-19 and U-17 Men's Singles. In U-21 and U-19 he will face strong competition from big brother Sid Naresh, and nemeses Darryl Tsao, and Daniel Tran. Kanak Jha (Top US Mens player), Sharon Alguetti (2022 Runner Up), and Xin Zhou (2021 Champion) are not part of the event this year.
There won't be a women's repeat champion, as 6 time national champion Lily Zhang will be competing in the WTT Star Contender in the Slovenia at the same time. 2022 runner-up Sally Moyland and top seed Amy Wang are favorites for the title. In 2022, Sally overcame Amy in a nail-biting semi-final. However, Amy was the Women's Singles champion in 2021 where she topped Lily in the finals. She also won both the U-21 and U-19 events that year, and the U-21 in 2022. Rachel Sung rounds out the top 3 seeds. Amy, Rachel, and Sally are also the top seeds for U-21 Women's Singles, demonstrating the strength of our US women’s youth players.
Brother duo Nandan and Sid Naresh are the team to beat in Men's Doubles. They will face formidable challenges from Zhou Xin / Aditya Godhwani, Wenzhang Tao / Jensen Feng, and Nikhil Kumar / Bosman Botha. Amy Wang and Rachel Sung, now classmates at UCLA, are strong favorites in Women's Doubles.
Registration is now closed. We look forward to welcoming all players, coaches and families to beautiful Fort Worth in a few short weeks!