There will be a Table Tennis tournament this Wednesday, July 14 at 6 p.m. in the Student Recreational Center Lobby. All Eastern students, faculty and staff are welcome to participate in the tournament and a T-shirt will be awarded to the champion.

According to Josh Jones, a student recreational employee, there are only four people signed up for the tournament.

Orkhan Abdullayev, a senior finance major, is one of the four that will be participating.

He’s an international student from Azerbaijan, Baku. Baku is located East of Turkey.

Abdullayev has been playing table tennis since high school, when he was on a team.

Abdullayev has participated in many table tennis tournaments at the Rec before. He has come close to winning a few.

During last spring’s tournament, he placed third and still has a positive attitude about the sport as well as his skills as a player.

“We could have won but we didn’t get lucky,” he said. “We got third place and the team that beat us won (the whole thing).”

At last year’s tournament there were at least 20 people. Table tennis players can get very competitive, according to Abdullayev.

Although he lost his match against the other double’s team in the spring semester, Abdullayev described it as very competitive and exciting.

“We won the first, they won the second, and the third one was very intense,” he said.

Also, despite losing last time, Abdullayev remains very optimistic about this upcoming tournament.

“It’s not for the prize, it’s just for fun-obviously if you win you feel good about it though,” he said.

The Rec Center allows students to sign up for intramural sports, and if they are interested they should stop by.

There will be a bags tournament on July 21 and a disc golf tournament on July 28.

Harrison Bueno can be reached at 581-7942 or at [email protected].