Trying to get the x and y coordinate of each cell, the get_y method returns the same value

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
tab = mtable.table(ax, ['1','2', '3'])
for i in range(3):
    print(tab[i,0].get_y())

prints

0
0
0

but putting the loop in its own cell (w/o the fig, ax) yields the correct values (even though it's the same object as above)

for i in range(3):
    print(tab[i,0].get_y())

-0.05518763796909486
-0.11037527593818977
-0.1655629139072847

a .py file also prints the incorrect values for the table cell x values. I've tried changing the variable name and got the same error in colab.