MLTT unveils 71-player Season 4 draft pool, international stars headline list

Major League Table Tennis just put its offseason hierarchy in public view, and the message is clear: Season 4 is being built around star power, international reach and roster needs, not just paperwork.

The league announced its candidate list for the Season 4 Draft on April 28, and the pool runs 71 deep, with every player rated above SPINDEX 2400. The group includes 54 men and 17 women, a reminder that MLTT’s team format is still one of the few places in the sport where men’s and women’s talent pools are mixed into the same professional structure. Sixteen of the candidates were full-time MLTT players in Season 3 before being released at the end of the year, then re-entered the draft as free agents. That is the important part: this is no longer a closed roster loop. Players can move, teams can reset, and the league is starting to look like a real market.

The draft itself will have 24 selections, matching the 24 vacant roster spots across MLTT’s 10 teams. That makes the process far more than a ceremonial talent showcase. It is the league’s main lever for competitive balance, especially coming off a 2025-26 season that ended with the Portland Paddlers winning the championship. Teams had two weeks before the draft to decide who to keep and to negotiate new contracts, while MLTT’s first trade window of 2026 closed on Monday before the draft. In other words, the board was already shifting before a ball was ever struck.

The names at the top tell you what MLTT values right now. An Jaehyun, whom the league listed as the No. 22 men’s singles player in the world and a career-best No. 13 on Oct. 21, 2025, brings legitimate top-tier credibility. Omar Assar, a four-time Olympian with 12 African Championships medals and 13 African Games medals, brings the kind of résumé that travels well with fans who follow the sport beyond the U.S. Quadri Aruna and Takuya Jin were already flagged in draft-lottery coverage as franchise-changing possibilities, and those are the kinds of players who can change not just a lineup, but the way a market pays attention to MLTT.

The lottery set the first layer of drama, with the Atlanta Blazers winning the No. 1 pick on April 7, followed by Texas at No. 2 and Florida at No. 3. Carolina already used the league’s new Returning Player Rule to sign Hong Lin, which shows how MLTT is widening the paths into a roster beyond the draft alone. That is the real story here: the league is moving toward a more structured, more global and more negotiable player economy, and Season 4 could be the deepest and most watched one yet if the headliners actually commit to full schedules.