Round Robin Romance

By Jia-Yu (Trinity) Sung
NCTTA Press Committee Member

Let’s talk about support systems.

Table tennis may be an individual game, but with collegiate table tennis, it’s ultimately a team sport. Behind the player on the table there’s countless unseen supporters and having your most fervent fan in your corner could make a world’s difference, whether it’s a coach or a friend. For Rice University’s Daniela Yano, it’s boyfriend Kevin Li.

Pursuing her PhD at the prestigious Rice University following her undergraduate years at Columbia, Daniela first met Kevin at a Los Angeles table tennis tournament where fate seemingly placed them in the same round robin group. Fate was actually Kevin’s direct request to be switched into her round robin group. Despite dashing his hopes of advancing from the group in favor of conversing with Daniela, Kevin never regretted it. Wryly but with affection, Kevin admits “it’s so fun losing [to Daniela] every time.”

With such a fortuitous meeting, their relationship continued steadfastly despite the long distance separation. Kevin himself also built a parallel career in collegiate table tennis as a Master’s student at the University of Southern California following his bachelor’s in UC San Diego, and now he happily coaches the Rice University team in support of Daniela.

Continuously building each other up, the couple embodies the spirit of collaborative growth in table tennis and the connections possible through the sport, an aspect that every player learns to treasure with collegiate table tennis. Contemplative, Daniela agrees, “table tennis is not the central thing in my life anymore, but it still plays such a central role.”

Moral of the story? Sign up for more round robin tournaments.

(Featured on left is Daniela Yano and on right is Kevin Li. Photo credit to Dennis Yanga).

About 2024 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the
National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Visit Eau Claire CVB. The
event will feature: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed
Teams, Women’s Teams.
PongSpace, Joola, the US
Coast Guard, Visit Eau Claire and Bluestone Designs sponsor the event.
Watch the event on live
stream starting Friday, April 12th on http://www.nctta.org/champs/2024/video.html

About NCTTA
The National Collegiate Table Tennis
Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively to
promote the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national
governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA
organizes elite intercollegiate competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org