Bringing talent to the table

Her eyes are glued to a small hollow ball as it shoots towards her. She engages in a back-and-forth rally with her opponent, returning his hits with a strong and carefully planned-out swing. This arduous match between senior Janice Lan and her coach is one of precision, timing and intense concentration.

Lan is one of few Blazers who play table tennis competitively. According to Larry Hodges, a table tennis coach and former USA Table Tennis Magazine editor, table tennis is popular only as a hobby in the United States. The number of people who play the sport competitively is gradually rising, but it remains in obscurity as a sport. In 2006, there were 1,010 junior members of USA Table Tennis, the official national league for the U.S., and that number has risen to 1,225, Hodges says. The approximately 9,000 registered table tennis players in the United States pale in comparison to the 600,000 in Germany or the millions in China. Despite its rarity, Lan has pursued the sport because it allows her to be a part of a community of international players.

Eyes on the prize

As a young child, Lan occasionally played table tennis in the basement just for fun. When she turned nine, her parents encouraged Lan and her older brother to try playing table tennis as a sport and signed them up for lessons at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. After her parents gave her a chance to try out the sport, it was Lan's own initiative, through constant practice and determination, that led her to rise to the top of her age group. "She gained progress quickly and caught up with the other kids [who started before her],” says Xiaofu Xie, Lan's mother.

After about eight months of lessons, Lan won a silver medal in the under-12 Table Tennis Junior Olympics, a national tournament for children. It was only her second contest. About a year later, Lan had her eyes set on making the USA Girls' Cadet Team, which consists of the nation's best female table tennis players under the age of 15. The team had only four spots, and making it would allow her to travel across the globe, compete internationally and participate in challenging training camps. "It's the main goal for every young table tennis player,” Lan explains. After two years of attempts to make the team, Lan prepared for the qualifying tournament during her eighth-grade year, often putting her friends and hobbies aside. "I had to miss out chilling with my friends for practice,” she says. Lan also found it hard to drop her violin lessons, to make more time for table tennis. Still, Lan's parents supported her decision to devote more time to table tennis. "If you want to be good, you have to sacrifice many things,” Xie says. As the competition drew closer, Lan trained relentlessly. On some Sundays, she explains, she would wake up, go to league practice tournament, go home, eat lunch, practice with her coach, and come back home. Eventually, Lan claimed the fourth and final spot in 2006 in Las Vegas after coming back from a two-point deficit to win the final match 13-11.

A whole new world

Making the team meant not only that she was one of the best players in the nation, but also that Lan would get to take a number of trips, including places such as South Africa, Canada, Texas and Seattle. In fact, Lan's primary motivation for her assiduous training is to go on these adventures, she says. Through her visits, she is able to make an international array of friends. "The people are amazing,” she says. "We see each other once or twice a year, and we are really close friends somehow.” During her stay at South Africa, Lan learned slang terms in French from her roommate from Quebec, while Lan taught her roommate English. Lan found the experience to be different and interesting. "During these trips, you learn things that you wouldn't normally learn in class,” Lan says.

Lan is able to keep in contact with many of the people through the Internet, including Alex Wang, a high school student from Texas she met during one of her table tennis tournaments. Wang and Lan have a lot in common and are both interested in piano, violin, and computer science. Wang says that it's fun to have friends from other states because it opens his mind up to what other kids are doing. Whether it is talking about how Texas doesn't have any basements or how he can drive 90 miles per hour on the road while Lan can't, these small distinctions allow him to know what's "out there,” he says. Since Lan and Wang are from two different environments, their conversations are not the usual mundane topics Wang talks about with his friends at school.

Lan believes that her visits to different places have made her a more outgoing and adventurous person, in addition to fostering an environment where she gets to have fun. "We go to new places and there are new people and new opportunities, that I have to learn how to actively seek out,” she says. Lan's close friend, Xinhong Qiu, noticed the change in Lan's ease in approaching others. "After meeting people from all around the world she's more open,” Qiu says. Lan also doesn't merely see her trips as just a visit to another country but an escape from reality. Lan has participated in training camps, where the physical effort allows her to escape from a cycle she describes as, "wake up, go to school, come back and do homework.”

The cycle is especially broken when Lan must miss days, sometimes even weeks, of school to go on her adventures. After coming back from a ten day trip to South Africa, right at the end of the first marking period, Lan was confronted with her report card which had two As and a number of Is which stand for "incomplete.” Even though Lan finds her self stuck with make up work when she comes back, she prefers the table tennis lifestyle. "You are forced to go to school. Ping pong is something that you choose to be in, so you like it better,” she says.

The American dilemma

Though Lan is a nationally ranked player, she does not see herself playing table tennis professionally in the future. Many of the older U.S. players she knows have stopped playing when they get to college because they can't make a living out of it. Even though she continues to practice, Lan hasn't been going to training sessions as often as she used to, due to school obligations. Now, she focuses most on her education because she understands the necessity of making a living. "So what if you are good at ping pong?” Lan says. "It won't get you anywhere in life.” According to Hodges, the best table tennis players in Europe and Asia are millionaires, while the top three players in the U.S. win a small amount of money in tournaments and with sponsorships – enough to make a meager living. Once the top players get older, they may become coaches, go overseas, or give it up all together. Lan and her table tennis peers sometimes joke about the nation's lack of interest in the sport they dominate. "If we were good as this in a sport like golf, we would be rich,” Lan's friends joke.

Lan has also lost more interest in becoming professional after seeing so many of her friends drop the sport. Watching fellow players quit has only served as an added deferent, she says. Seeing one of her friends quit table tennis was particularly discouraging for Lan. "[My friends and I] all called her and we took turns yelling at her to come back,” she says.

Giving up professional table tennis, however, does not mean that Lan will stop playing competitively in the future. She still enjoys playing the sport and hopes to practice at least once a week and compete in national, local and collegial tournaments. Playing table tennis at non-professional tournaments will be a lot easier and will not require as much of her time as playing table tennis professionally. Whether it's set in another country across the world or in a small club in the suburbs of Maryland, Lan says she will always compete in the sport she loves.

Table Tactics

According to Hodges, table tennis requires a lot of speed and strength but it is also a tactical game. "Table tennis is like chess at light speed,” he says. A player has a split second to not only hit the ball but decide on how he or she will play his or her next move. Good technique is needed when striking the ball to give it spin. Although many don't think that the sport is physical, Hodges says that players need a lot of physical strength to react to and hit a ball coming in at a fast speed. Lan says anticipation is key to a good match. A good table tennis player must be able to tell how his or her opponent will hit the ball and when it will arrive. Being a few milliseconds off can cost the player the point.