He represented the USA at two Olympic Games in London 2012 and Rio 2016 before transitioning to opening his own club, the Houston International Table Tennis Academy in Katy, TX, but now Olympian Tim Wang is on a different mission. After many years focusing on professional table tennis, Tim Wang has a goal to get a college education and as such has joined the Pillar College table tennis team along with another 2 time Olympian, Lily Yip.

Yesterday saw Tim capture the top spot in the 2017 NCTTA Mid-Atlantic Regional Men's Singles Qualification as he shot through the opposition. In the group stage he started out with a 3-1 win over Charlotte's Alexander Hohl and comfortable wins over the other 3 players in his group stage. In the quarterfinals he defeated Sho Hashizume of the University of Pennsylvania a comfortable 3-0 before coming up against Maryland's Nathan Hsu in the semifinal.

While there were some great points on display and a couple of games pushed tight it ended 14-12, 11-6, 11-9 another 3-0 win for the three time US National Champion and a ticket to the final where he would meet Duke's Roger Rao a record holding champion of the 2010 New Zealand Open Men's Singles title at 13 years of age. Rao currently rated 2425 USATT showed some fight but it was the formidable consistency and fine-tuned technique of Tim Wang who led him to victory, sealing another 3-0 win and the gold medal for the event.

What Tim could achieve at the NCTTA Nationals is yet to be seen so stay tuned for Wisconsin Au-Claire in April!

The Women's Singles competition was captured in surprising style by Duke's Claire Xiao, she advanced to the final with a 3-0 win over Zi Xin Lee of UPenn while on the other side semifinal it was UPenn's Lucy Ma who upset '92 and '96 US Olympian Lily Yip after a 2-0 deficit to make the final.

The final also saw a turn in favor as Claire Xiao battled back from trailing 2-1 against Lucy Ma to force the match to a tie and then go to deuce in the final game. It was Duke's underdog who took the match 12-10 in the 5th and earned the top spot for the Mid-Atlantic Region!

Congratulations to the finalists, winners and qualifiers and a big thank you to the organizers and schools, players and helpers and of course the team at Triangle Table Tennis Center for hosting in such a fantastic venue.

You can find all results, including individual match results here: NCTTA Mid-Atlantic Regional Results

Live Stream Archive of the 2017 NCTTA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship