June 22, 2009
Ready to Serve His Country
Timothy Wang (USA)
Photo Courtesy of Sam Wang
No U.S. male has ever won a world table tennis singles title, yet Houston’s Timothy Wang doesn’t seem deterred by that
Courtesy of Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Godwin
June 18, 2009 - When it comes to table tennis players stateside, Forrest Gump might be the most popular.
Houston pingpong phenom Timothy Wang would like to change that.
The 17-year-old from Alief is quickly establishing himself as a possible contender to dethrone China’s table tennis dynasty.
“Right now, my goal is to be the men’s national champion in the U.S.,” Wang said.
Wang first took an interest in the sport at age 5, tagging along to the Houston Table Tennis Association clubs with his older brother, Roland. He won a number of trophies but didn’t begin training seriously until three years ago, when the trophies started getting bigger.
But last December, when he won the U.S. Junior National Championship in exhilarating fashion, his father didn’t even get to see it.
“I couldn’t watch,” said Sam Wang, who had been two months removed from an angioplasty at the time. “I had to leave the court and calm down. I didn’t realize he had won until people started coming to congratulate me — it was exciting, but at the same time, kind of surreal.”
Going International
That victory earned Wang a spot on the four-man U.S. national team, and he competed on the ultimate stage at the World Table Tennis Championships in April.
“It’s really nerve-racking at the world championships because there’s so many more people watching you play,” Wang said. “I was playing in Japan, against Japan, on national Japanese TV, so during the whole match, all of Japan was rooting against me.”
Although he did not get very far in his first world championships, the young prospect should have plenty of chances to make a return. He’s training in Baoding, China, these days to improve his skills before the China Junior Open next week.
“Training covers everything mentally and physically,” Wang said. “We train for over six hours a day, six days a week, and it’s really helping me.”
Competing abroad is nothing new to Wang, and he quickly admits that traveling is one of the best things about his unique teenaged lifestyle.
“It’s amazing because I get to see places all around the world,” Wang said. “It’s a real honor for me to compete for my country and see the world at the same time.”
However, he admits to getting homesick when he’s away for extended periods of time, citing Houston’s sushi as one of the things he misses most when he’s out of town.
Trying to Defy History
The elder Wang said financing his son’s travels without any form of sponsorship is a challenge in its own right.
“We basically have to fund everything ourselves, and it gets tough,” Sam Wang said. “The U.S. Olympic Committee has never been very supportive of U.S. table tennis because we don’t have any players in the top-10, so we have to produce results to get subsidies.”
And results are not something American-born table tennis players produce very often.
The last time an American won an event at the world championships was a mixed-doubles team in 1956. In the 83-year history of the tournament, no American men’s singles player has ever brought home the gold, and Sam Wang is well aware of that tradition.
“It’s going to be tough, but this is something that Timothy wants and he’s aware of the sacrifice that he and our family will have to make to get him to the top,” he said. “We’ll keep looking for sponsors and help anywhere we can get it, but we’re always behind him 100 percent.”
Wang’s early start and year-round training have provided him with the experience he’ll need to make a run to the top — and perhaps become America’s first world champion.
“It would be, I don’t know, a dream,” Wang said with a shy smile. “China has been the best for so long and it’s hard to imagine someone taking them down, but I think it’s possible.”
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