By Dennis Davis (From Nov/Dec 1999 USA Table Tennis Magazine)

At the airport subway in Hong Kong.
L-R: Santiago Coste, Shelley Lee, Danny Bruno, Trinh Vo (in back),
Minh-Chau Nguyen, Auria Malek (in back), Levy Klots, Michelle Hu,
Minh-Thanh Nguyen and Hawk Lee.
Photo by Coach Dennis Davis Copyright 1999.
The Palo Alto Table Tennis club junior program travel to Zhongshan, China for three weeks of intensive training (August 2-24, 1999).

I was pretty sure that the junior players traveling with me did not know what to expect during our training in China. I knew. Last summer I took Michelle Do and David Rudesill to Shanghai for training. I knew it would be hot and humid with no air conditioning in the training hall. I knew that some of the juniors were not used to eating Chinese food. I knew that the hotel was not going to be what they were used to. I knew they would be sweating more in three weeks than they had in their entire lives. One wonders why you put yourself through so much. The reason is the training. I believe the training in China is second to none in improving developing players. All our players were rated between 800-1850. The players who went were: Michelle Hu, Shelley Lee, Auria Malek, Danny Bruno, Levy Klots, Minh-Chau Nguyen, Minh-Thanh Nguyen, Wesley Leong, Santiago Coste Jr. Two parents also came with us for the entire trip: Trinh Vo and Hawk Lee.

We trained at the Zhongshan Sports School in Zhongshan City, Canton, China. The school is a government-supported sports training center for a large variety of sports including table tennis, basketball, swimming, track and field, and Chinese Martial Arts. Many of the students at this school come from other provinces around China so they have a large dormitory for all the resident athletes.

The training hall was a large gym with twenty tables. The first day we arrived there was a young junior training camp. There were about thirty juniors under 10 years old. The group we trained with was between 12-18 years old. Most were under 15 years old, only three players were older than 14. The practice partners’ playing levels were between 2000 and 2300. There were two women players visiting Zhongshan from Shanghai, where we trained the previous summer. They were both over 2400. Auria Malek and Santiago Coste trained with the ladies for the first two days.

The training was twice a day with the morning session from 9AM to 11AM and the afternoon session from 3PM to 5PM. The training was Monday to Friday, with Saturday being Round Robin Match Day. Each morning session our players trained with designated training partners. Some days I picked the drills everyone would do and other days one of the Chinese coaches would select the drills. Many of the drills focused on consistency and developing technique. Generally, the players knew where each ball would be played throughout each drill. This was the kind of training our group needed because there were many changes that needed to take place in their technique. The afternoon sessions were multiball. The training school supplied us with four players who would feed multiball to our players for two hours. I had one table that I did multiball for our players. I was able to spend a lot of time with each player over the three weeks to correct or teach new techniques.

Each Saturday we would play matches with the Chinese junior players. Each of our players would play at least eight matches in the day against eight Chinese juniors. Four matches in the morning session and four matches in the afternoon session. After the third and last set of round robin matches, Santiago had won six matches and Auria had won three.

Auria and Santiago got the opportunity to practice with a member of the Chinese Junior National Team. He had the best serves I have seen in a long time. I would estimate his rating to be over 2700. He is sixteen years old. It was nice of him to play with them. As you could imagine, the quality of training was a little lower than he was used to.

While we were in Zhongshan, we found out that Auria had been selected to play at an international tournament in Taiwan for the U.S. Junior Team. I had to put Auria on the plane to Taiwan, not to see him again until we returned to California.

We left Zhongshan after three weeks of great training to spend a few days shopping and sightseeing in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, a typhoon hit and we did no sightseeing and very little shopping.

I would like to thank Palo Alto Coach Wang Zhi Yong for all his help and contacts to make our trips to China possible. I also want to thank Hawk Lee and Trinh Vo for all their help during the trip.

Next Year Japan!!