The Weekend Ahead: April 10-12, 2026
Highlighting competitions from around the world of speedcubing.
Xuanyi Geng at Beijing Winter 2026, with his current WR-securing 3.37 solve.
Welcome back to SD’s weekly preview of the weekend’s biggest events! After an eventful slate of competitions last weekend (where nothing controversial at all happened), this weekend’s action takes us through a couple of US comps, although we can’t forget about the elephant in the room happening in China this weekend…
Xuzhou Zenith
By now, you’ve heard about the ongoing situation between Yiheng and Xuanyi (and their respective families) due to alleged unfairness in the H2H round of last weekend’s competition in Xi’an. If you haven’t, save space for the rest of us beneath the rock you live under.
Although both are registered for Xuzhou Zenith, both have committed to boycotting all future H2H events indefinitely. This event features another H2H final in 3x3, so it remains to be seen what both competitors end up doing when that time comes.
If they drop out of 3x3, that opens the door for a slew of competitors to take the win this weekend, led by Qixian Cao. Other names to look out for: Bofan Zhang, Lingkun Jiang, and Yi Shen.
Whatever happens this weekend, you can be sure that it’ll have everyone talking.
Nebraska Championship
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s bring our attention to this state championship in southeast Nebraska. Even if there aren’t a lot of marquee names competing at this event (except SCTV’s own Manu Singhal!), there’s still a lot to be invested in, especially when a state title is on the line.
Anton Angeletti is the favorite to win the 3x3 event, being ranked over 500 places ahead of the next highest-ranked competitor, Jayben Keene. But don’t be fooled: Keene’s PR is less than four-tenths of a second behind Angeletti’s, so an upset could very well happen.
If you’re not into speed, this event also features two top-100 FMC solvers in Alexander Wheeler and Walker Welch; the latter finds himself as a high seed in multiple events at this competition.
Collegiate Cubing Championship Playoffs
We also wanted to give a shout-out to the ongoing CCC playoffs, which you can view on their YouTube channel. For the uninformed, CCC is a college cubing league with 32 teams, and its playoff bracket features the top 14 teams (with the #1 and #2 seeds receiving first-round byes) battling it out to see who’ll come out on top.
Although there are a lot of big names to watch out for, there’s one in particular who stands out: Matty Hiroto Inaba, who has led Columbia to a respectable 5th seed in the tournament. He’ll need to keep up his league-leading averages and provide valuable advice for his teammates if Columbia wants to have a chance to win it all, however.
The favorite among the pack, however, is UC Berkeley, who remain the only team in the tournament to not lose a single set. With a lineup of Ethan Jan, Heidi Chan, and Zane Qureshi, this team seems poised to win it all, but how long can they keep their undefeated streak up?