Bahrain Club Wins Record 25th Table Tennis League Title, Topping Saar 3-1

Bahrain Club's 25th Bahrain Table Tennis League title did not come easily. The 2025-2026 season finale in Manama stretched beyond two and a half hours before captain Murtadha Hussein closed it out with a decisive 3-1 rubber against Rashid Sanad, winning by set scores of 11-6, 10-12, 11-7 and 11-3 to end any remaining uncertainty.

The final against traditional rivals Saar Club was a far tighter affair than their first-round meeting, when Bahrain had swept Saar 3-0 without much drama. Saar arrived at the final with a reshuffled lineup, dropping experienced player Sayed Ali Radhi in favor of Mohammed Nader Al Ali, while Ali Abbas Abdulwahab was retained and tasked with opening the match against Rashid Sanad rather than facing Bahrain captain Murtadha Hussein, who typically starts.

For a while, it looked like another Bahrain procession. Rashid Sanad took the opening rubber over Ali Abbas Abdulwahab, and Mohammed Abbas followed with a win over Murtadha Hussein to put Bahrain on course for a clean sweep. Then Hassan Abdulrahim built a 2-0 lead in sets and reached 8-5 in the third, and a 3-0 result seemed imminent. Al Ali had other ideas. The Saar substitute pulled off what the match report called the standout contest of the night, coming back from that deficit to win 3-2 and keep his club alive at 2-1.

That forced the tie to a fourth rubber and set up the captain's moment. Murtadha Hussein, whose earlier loss to Mohammed Abbas had been an uncharacteristic stumble, closed the match and the season with authority.

The championship is the 25th national league title in Bahrain Club's history, a number that puts measurable distance between them and every other club in domestic table tennis. What makes the timing more remarkable is that the celebration will have to wait: the Bahrain Table Tennis Federation postponed the trophy ceremony because the national team is preparing for the World Cup in London, with an intermediate international tournament in Tunisia before that.

The domestic triumph also came within 24 hours of a separate historic result. On March 19, Bahrain Club were crowned champions of the 36th Arab Table Tennis Clubs Championship in Muscat, Oman, becoming the first club in the competition's history to win the title. They reached the final by defeating Kuwait's Yarmouk 3-0 in the last 16, edging Qatar SC 3-2 in the quarter-finals, and beating Al Ittihad of Saudi Arabia 3-1 in the semi-finals, before finishing with a 3-1 victory over Egypt's Enppi Club in the final. A domestic record title and a first-ever Arab championship crown in the same week is a combination that will be difficult to top whenever the federation finally finds room on the calendar for a celebration.