Members of the ISU Table Tennis Club will host this weekend Iowa’s first-ever table tennis tournament sanctioned by USA Table Tennis, the national organizing body for the sport.

Tournament director Jason Stanek and club member Zhao-Qun Zhou both said USATT has never had a sanctioned tournament in Iowa before; the closest ones have been held in Chicago.

The Raging Rally Open will also be the club’s first attempt at hosting any tournament.

Members usually compete among themselves, in intramurals and occasionally in the winter and summer Iowa Games.

As of Wednesday, Stanek said about 60 people from seven states surrounding Iowa had expressed interest in being a part of the Raging Rally Open.

One of these players is 14-year-old Nathaniel “Ming” Curran from Minneapolis. According to an e-mail from Stanek, Curran is the top-rated entrant in the USATT ratings.

“[Curran] is a left-handed child prodigy taking college course work,” Stanek said. “At 13 years old he was named USATT Junior of the Month and ranked in the top five nationally for boys under 14 in table tennis.

“He contacted us through e-mail, so I checked him out and went, ‘Whoa, this isn’t just any kid.'”

Zhou and Stanek said they were excited and looking forward to seeing Curran in action.

In addition, the club secured Paul Lewis, Iowa Games table tennis commissioner and former club president from 1981-83, as referee.

Also participating in the tournament will be Houshang Bozorgzadeh, a USATT Hall of Fame member and a three-time Iranian national champion.

The main goal of the tournament is to raise funds to purchase new paddles for the club.

The hope from the tournament is to eventually purchase 12 new paddles, which cost about $100 each.

These are not the standard wooden paddles with paper-thin strips of rubber glued to them.

Zhou said both the paddle and the rubber are made with a different material.

Not only that, the rubber is different on each side to allow the paddle-wielder to hit the ball differently.

“Many of the advanced players will have one side be really fast and really spinny,” Stanek said.

“The other side will almost be like anti-spin, tricking up the other player.”

In the event the club does come up short in its bid for new paddles, Stanek and Zhou said they were unsure about where the rest of the money would come from.