By: Andrew Lu
Last week, I got the opportunity to play in the Hua Xia/HITTA Table Tennis Team Tournament. Long before the tournament, I had to get a team, and fortunately, my coach Ben decided to form a team for the tournament. Coach Ben told me about the spot on the team, and I immediately took the opportunity to play in another tournament.
Ben is part of the Texas A&M University Table Tennis club, and thankfully, I’m good enough to gain membership (even though I’m not a student) to play with the club members. We had 6 people interested in going to the tournament, and each team had 3 slots, so I got paired with Ben and Zhiyong, another outstanding table tennis player. Our team would be called TAMU A, or the Aggie Attackers.
Coach Ben is a tall guy, which means that he played a lot like the European style, with crazy counter loops and smashes. While on the other hand, Coach Ben has trained with Chinese coaches, which means he is able to play a very good in-table game, with down the line backhand flicks. Coach Ben is a very nice person: very generous, and insightful. He teaches me movement, the touch on the ball, and also the physics of just the ping-pong ball and the paddle. Coach Ben can make a simple hit like a forehand, into a very complex and meaningful shot.
Zhiyong, on the other hand, is a very unstable player. He can either be at Ben’s level, or suddenly plunk down to less than my level. Zhiyong studies the video recording of Ma Long, the all-time GOAT, and plays a lot like him. To me, Zhiyong is like an elder brother to me, pointing out what I could do better, and what I did well. He’s very calm and wise person, so the car ride to other cities is never boring.
On the day of the tournament, Ben came to my house at 7:15 A.M. and drove me to HITTA, or the Houston International Table Tennis Academy for the tournament, which is a non-sanctioned, team tournament. The tournament consists of 3 divisions (A, B, and C), which are differentiated by rating. Our group ranked in B division, because last tournament, Ben slipped… And down went his rating. Normally, we might had played in division A.
We were actually a low-ranked group in division B, but we felt like we had a huge chance of winning.
Of course, humans aren’t perfect, and Ben forgot his paddle at his house, and by the time we realized it, we were halfway to Houston already. Same thing happened to me before, but not with the paddle, it was my special lucky shoes.
Thankfully, in the other car (which drove 30 minutes after us, because Daniel forgot to wake up), Jordan, another team member of the TAMU B team had a decent backup paddle for Ben to use.
At 9:00 A.M. the tournament officially started, and our team was in a group of 3 teams. We didn’t play first, so we went and watched some godly players play. It wasn’t until 11:30 A.M. that I finally got to play. I and Zhiyong were on doubles. With no previous doubles experience, we lost badly, but I still think we were getting better. The first team was easy, our team won 3-1, and I didn’t even need to play the last singles.
The next team was after lunch (and please remind me to not get Kun Pao chicken again). And this team was a bunch of Hong Kongese old timers who have a few decent tricks up their sleeves. Ben won the first singles, and Zhiyong clutched up and took the second singles. For the third game, I and Zhiyong lost in doubles again, but we were gaining experience in touch on the ball, and constructing the point for a huge offense.
I lost the 4th singles, and now, it was tied 2-2. But, Ben easily took the 5th game, and 3-2…
After the game, Zhiyong got approached by one of the old timers who called him inexperienced and foolish. And then, they said that Ben wasn’t that good and that they should’ve won. But Zhiyong completely ignored them and moved on.
We moved on to the semi-finals, and by this time, it was already 4:00 P.M. We were surprised, and also not really, when we had to play the TAMU B team, and even though we were friends, we had to win because we are the stronger, and higher rated team.
Ben beat Jordan in the first singles, and I beat their 3rd ranked player, Johnson, in the second singles. Ben and Zhiyong lost to Daniel and Jordan in the doubles. Then, I lost to Daniel in the 4th game (of course, he was a pro when he was a teenager), but I was happy when I got 10, 7, and 9 points off of him in the games. But, Zhiyong clutched up again and beat Johnson in the last game. We won, 3-2.
It was a really fast showdown, and before I could even check the storefront of the club for new paddles, the game was over.
Now, we were in the finals, against a really strong team from CCC table tennis. The first game was an intense one with Ben against a really high-rated player. But, Ben used his backhand techniques to throw the opponent off, since he’s a very backhand dominant player (not seen usually).
Now, Zhiyong had an opponent that is really evenly matched with him. And he turned the tables with a narrow victory, due to his regular training, and pretty much insane forehand.
Now, it was Zhiyong and I that would play the 3rd game, which is doubles. If we had lost, then the other team would have had the chance to turn the tables. We were down 0-2, but at this point, I felt like we had accumulated enough experience to bring them down, and in the final game, we were losing, but we barely won. But we had a great game plan. Since I am a lefty, which gave me an advantage to step around the table for hooking shots down the line to their weak player. Zhiyong then ended the point, if it wasn’t ended already. Also, since I’m a lefty, I get to cycle right while he cycles left, which is a lot more efficient then cycling in a circle with two righties (or lefties, but lefties are not common.
We were still down 1-2. But the tables have been turned. A quick two more games and we were the winner.
There we were, I was standing on the champion podium with Ben and Zhiyong, and our B team was also in the 3rd place spot. We had made $160 by the tournament prizes, and we went to celebrate at a hot pot place.
Thinking back, I think the star of the show was Ben and Zhiyong, but with persistence, Zhiyong and I could win the last doubles. Thinking back, Ben did very well adapting to his “new” paddle, and carried the team against the strongest single opponents. Zhiyong, on the other hand, played very stable, and had a very good run against the other team’s single players. And of course, I think I did well, played decent, not my best, but with confidence. I believe that with determination, anything can be done.