Table Tennis Feature: Table Tennis in the USA
Table Tennis in the USA is organised by United States Table Tennis Association (USATT) and it was founded in 1933. Most Americans play the sport for recreational reasons but there are only 8,100 members registered with USATT.
Over 300 table tennis clubs across USA are affiliated with USATT with around 50 in California as the member ship costs 40-dollars a year for an adult and 20-dollars per annum for the college and junior players.
USATT National Team consists of the best table tennis players across states as in 2009 the USATT Women’s National Team included Lily Zang, Ariel Hsing, Jun Gao and Crystal Huang (Yao Xi). All four players were selected because of their brilliant performance
as Zhang and Hsing were only 13 when they got selected and their coaches believe them to be the future of USATT.
Gao was picked up by the selectors because her name was in the list of Top 30 World Rankings and is the top player in America since 1994, while Huang made her way through to the team after she qualified through the trials. Zhang and Hsing are indeed two
very good players of the sport as they have proved it every time these two walk at the table. Both these young stars have the potential and are expected to represent USA in the 2012 London Olympics.
Yinghua Cheng, Timothy Wang, Yu Shao and David Zhuang are the Men’s USATT National Team members as Cheng and Zhuang have made their way in to the team by succeeding in the team trails. David Zhuang was the only player to qualify for the Olympics event in
2008 as he was the member of United States Olympic team 2008. Yu Shao currently stands at the 520th position in the World’s Ranking while the youngest player in the team, 18-year-old Timothy Wang is at the 863rd position in the Worlds’
Ranking. The oldest player in the Men’s team is Yinghua Cheng who is 51 and is ranked 231st
at the ITTF ranking.
There are many tournaments endorsed by USATT including the U.S. Open that started in 1933 and is held every year since then as over 600 players participate in the event. The tournament has been organised in different locations including California, North
Carolina, Illinois, and Florida. Zhang Mo and Li Jiawei were the past Women winners of the event while Aleksander Karakasevic and Chen Weixing dominated the Men’s category.
US Nationals are another tournament held annually as only US citizens can participate in the event and the top finishers of the tournament then compete at the USA Table Tennis National Team Trials. The final 16 players out of over 600 participants at the
event in both Men’s and Women’s category are entitled to represent the USA National Team.
The other way to make an appearance at the National level is through ITTF World Ranking as athletes who are ranked amongst the Top 30 ITTF players, qualifies for the National Team automatically. There is one spot reserved at the roster for the player who
is elected by the USATT National Coaches as the High Performance Advisory Committee approves the selection after which the player can play in the National Team.
Mark Hazinski, Yiyong Fan, Timothy Wong and Adam Hugh represented the Men’s USA National Teams in 2011 while Ariel Hsing, Erica Wu, Lily Zhang and Prachi Jha complete the list of the four women representing USA in the coming seasons. Table Tennis is strongly
followed in America and they have the ideal system to develop the sport at all levels.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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