MATCH HIGHLIGHTS Angles Shouman vs Kim Kwang IL MLTT Week 12 Pleasanton CA

The Insider, Luke Scocci, to further articulate as we start up this first game, Mohamed and how he's feeling. Guys, absolutely. Mohamed Shoman, for those of you who did not watch the Carolina Gold Rush in Week 11 in Houston, in the second game during warm-up that weekend, Mohamed Shoman suffered a lower back injury that he told me on Friday he could not move for a little bit after that. He just wouldn't let him. Obviously, he is moving very, very well now, and he told me on Friday that he was feeling perfectly fine, back to normal. And now, Mohamed Shoman comes back to the Carolina Gold Rush's lineup as doubles alongside Enzo Angles. For the first time this weekend, these two players are playing together against Hayley So, it'll be a challenge in order to get that chemistry up again, but again, these are two very talented players, and they got what it takes. One more for me, Luke, and that would be Enzo and how he gets involved here with the doubles player that, yeah, he doesn't know what it's like to play with him this weekend. It's a change for Enzo, so curious to see how that chemistry plays itself out, too. Yeah, absolutely. Like, doubles is a completely different animal from singles. You can't just put a really, really good singles player and expect him or her to be outstanding at doubles. You know, sometimes that does happen. Nikhil Kumar is very, very good at both, for instance, at the Portland Paddlers, but, you know, some players, it's tough to make that adjustment, because you not only have to mind one player, you have to mind two players, both on your side of the court and the other. So, yeah, this is the first time Mohamed Shoman has played doubles this weekend, but he's with Enzo Angles, another one of those players who excelled at both singles and doubles, so with him leading the way and with Mohamed Shoman bringing the energy that he has brought all season, again, the Carolina Gold Rush should be doing enough to keep this set competitive. We'll talk about the energy that you bring, Luke Scocci, as we wrap things up with you. Thanks so much for the insights again on Mohamed and his run back to play. Brian, it's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me. As always, you can always learn something from Luke, and 6-4 is our first game score. We have seen Enzo often play with Kai Zhang, and I think that team will be an option for Coach Alex Yang, but given a chance now, Mohamed Shoman had to get into a match because he came out here with the team. Unlikely they would throw him into the singles, so going into the doubles where there's a little bit more close level in play, but the Korean pair, the Blasters, again, known for their footwork, great power on the forehand, and look at that one. Kim goes down, but keeps it in play. Baik tries to follow up, but receives a jamming shot. With all the storylines here, Sean, one of the things that I think has gone underrepresented is the fact that Kim and Baik have only dropped one doubles game all weekend. They're 5-1, which can get overshadowed by Zhang and Zongles and all the things that they're doing on the court this week. And doubles is one of those elements of MLTT where, again, when you make a shot like what Enzo just did, I gotta stop for a second there, that was incredible. Watch this inside-out down the line. But jumping back to the Blasters, players in Korea train so well on their footwork, and it lends itself to doubles, and then you get the right-handed, left-handed player team. It really isn't that big of a surprise that these guys have done so well because they can set each other up, they can run everything down, they can play with spin, they can play with placement, power, generally good serves. So you'll see them winning points from all phases of the game, putting a lot of pressure on the gold rush. That was a very lethal chop by Shomon. Kim right now just gets under the ball and puts everything he can. Kim normally wouldn't have a difficult time driving this chop, but it came off of such a quick ball. Enzo quite pleased with how it transpired. Shomon steps in, crosses over, gets his forehand into the fire fight successfully. Gold Rush fighting to get back down, trailing 4-2 here after Lilly sweeps. Two spin-infused forehands, one after the other, from Shomon and Andres. They got their first game together. One point overall between the Blasters and the Gold Rush. Big credit to Mohamed Shomon really taking control over the last two points of that game. First with a very devastating chop and then coming back with a very nice loop. Enzo loves it when his partners can help score. But that was a little miscommunication there, Enzo serving deep. Mohamed needs to be able to play a very offensive shot on that next ball. Kim serves, he'll be playing singles forehands Edward Lee later on in the matchup. Enzo Angles has gone 8-1 in singles games this week as he rushes one past the Blasters. I want to give a nice shout out to our ball boys and ball girls who have been exceptional this entire weekend here in the Bay Area. He went behind the back. That would have been exceptional if he would have stuck the landing and found the table. He made one of those exact same shots in Season 1 playing with Hong Lin in the doubles. And now Baik sends Angles falling backwards on this shot. Cornel Baik 31st in the power ranking. Enzo trying to keep the ball short. He's got too much ball. That return of a touchy subject from Enzo. Nice combination there by Carolina. See the controlled opening shot by Enzo. Spins it up and then Shoman deep into the backhand corner. Shoman trying to do a fading flip. Tries the inside out. Short and tasteless on the serve and that forced the Blasters to inject pace which forced them to over hit in error. Intelligence of pace there from Shoman who's in for it all. In for broke. I think in this situation it's more of an indication that this is his first match of the weekend. While Enzo's been playing game after game at such a successful rate. Shoman is still finding his rhythm. Kind of reaching for the ball. Not building the points the way that Enzo would love. If you look at Enzo's body language. Of course you've got to be tired after going 8-1 in singles. Keeping the serve very short and tight. Nothing to attack easily. Kept it alive for an extra point through the heroics from Enzo Anglas. But Bake just one shot better. Anglas comes in. Proceeds to thread the pair off the Bay Area. Once again Enzo goes for the quick forehand attack directly off the serve. Sometimes it can be a bit of frustration when you see those shots where almost like you want to take the ball off your teammate's paddle by saying let me finish it before. Right now you see Shoman kind of spraying the ball. Not really in sync. Blasters changed up the serve on Anglas that time. It was deep and low. Some errors there from Shoman. Help the cause for the Blasters as we have split the first two games of doubles. Shoman MLTT male player of the week in week two. Coming up with a couple of little miscues to enable the Blasters to take the game. The MVP of the 2025 MLTT season. Serve short. Misses. This first shot behind the serve suffered a fractured foot. Missed week one when the Blasters were hosting season three because of the recovery and the surgery. Enzo just stood there. Couldn't believe and there you can see the extra wrap on the right foot ankle. He didn't make his MLTT season three debut because of that foot issue until week six. This time Shoman doing a much better job of getting the ball on the table. Giving Enzo something to work with by playing much safer and not going for broke. Sean can we take a moment to just honor the crowd here and what a great environment we've got here on this Sunday afternoon. I mean it is packed right now. Not only in the stands along the court but also the VIP section is fully loaded with fans of Lilly and the Blasters. Looks great on television. Just a testament to MLTT and its continued progress. We expect this type of turnout for championship weekend. Which will be April 18th and 19th in Fremont California. On the run at the forehand do the rest for Tae and Kim. There it is. QR code to scan for more information. Tickets. Location and everything related to MLTT championship weekend April 18th and 19th. And the league will be back in Northern California. Last season the finals were in Philadelphia. Season one finals in Chicago. So really cool that they get moved around so different parts of the country can experience the best of MLTT. Some of the best that MLTT has to offer will be in our next matchup. Considering how well Yuqing Huang has been playing and Charles Naib has seen. And Brian I said to you as we saw this as the match sheets came out. This was the match that I was the most looking forward to. Just because of the styles of the players. Yuqing brings everything back and you know Lachine he is going to be going for it at every opportunity. Two elder statesmen of the sport that brings so much to the table. Beautiful combination by Carolina. Brian going back to the open serve doubles. It just increases the level of play because you can see Shoman serving from his backhand corner which is what he does in singles. If we are using that legacy doubles he would be over on the forehand side. And just putting it into play. He wouldn't be able to do those normal serves because the angles don't work. That's a nice backhand pickup by Shoman. It's too much of a gift for the receiver when it's non-open serve doubles because you can predict so much more. You know where the ball is going and Enzo with the self knockdown. You can just see the feet going up. He's been knocking everyone out all weekend long. I guess it's time for the self knockout. Kwon Il-Baek made a concerted effort to go cross court. He's very confident with his decision there. Last ditch effort stretch all the way out. Full extension with the forehand and let's just hope for the best and the best is what we got. How did he get that ball to land on his paddle? He went around the wrong direction. Somehow did the extension. Made contact and you can look at Kim. Which would serve Enzo for the next shot better. Shoman had one better than what Kwon Il-Baek had in mind. And it got his teammates off their seat as you could just see. The gold rush set that up perfectly. Sending the opponents to one side and then playing the open court. Again that's exactly what Anglais said during the timeout. Go short and win the points with it. I have trouble getting out of the way. Anglais and Shoman can wrap this up with a game one and games one and three. If they win this next point. Quality block by Shoman to give Carolina the point in the match. It's a one point score. Thanks to Shoman and his weekend debut here on Sunday in double. Playing a big part. Raising his level eight. Intermission we go and back to play in ten minutes.