It's official, folks: The first title at the US National Table Tennis Championships in two years has been awarded. First, though, a little background information is in order. In 1965, 13-year-old Patty Martinez of San Diego (pictured) became the youngest ever US Open Women's Singles champion in almost unbelievably dramatic fashion. In the final, she faced 49-year-old Leah Thall-Neuberger, the all-time women's champion with nine titles. Playing games to 21 in a best-of-five match, it appeared that Thall-Neuberger would equal Dick Miles' record of ten singles titles when she went up quintuple match point, 20-15. Seven points later, however, it was Martinez holding the trophy, her first of three US Open titles. Then, and even more so now, Martinez was an anomaly in her tenacious adherence to hardbat play. Martinez was born in 1952, the year a little-known Japanese player named Hiroji Satoh changed table tennis forever, winning the World Championship with a mysterious new sponge-coated racket. Although Martinez literally grew up in the sponge era, the hardbat was perfectly suited for her close-to-the-table, block-and-smash style. Like Marty Reisman, Martinez stuck to her trusty six-shooter in a world overrun automatic weapons. Martinez was inducted into the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame in 1993. In 2016, she married fellow Hall of Famer Si Wasserman, hence her current listing in the US Nationals as Patty Martinez-Wasserman. With a USATT rating of 1830, the 69-year-old Martinez-Wasserman was the top seed in the Women's Over 65 event. Proving the hardbat style is still alive and well, she went undefeated in the round-robin event, vanquishing every challenger 3-0. (In other news, third-seeded Gigi Zeng upset second seed Jean Newby to claim silver.) For sixty years, Patty Martinez-Wasserman has been defying convention with spectacular results. With yet another national title in the bag, don't expect her to willingly concede her turf to the sponge mob any time soon.

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