Leader of the Pack: Sunny Li

By Larry Hodges (From March/April 2000 USA Table Tennis Magazine)

Sunny first burst on the scene in 1991, sweeping Under 10 Boys’ Singles at both the Junior Nationals and Junior Olympics. Since then, Sunny has established himself as the dominant junior boy in the U.S. in the 1990s, winning more junior boys’ titles than anyone else – exactly 20 national junior championships at the Junior Nationals and Junior Olympics alone. In fact, for many of those years, he was practically "conceded" his age group, as most of his "rivals" simply weren’t in his league – not that they didn’t try to beat him. However, it was only in recent years that a number of other junior players caught up to him and became serious threats. After completely dominating the first half of the 1990s, Sunny has faced stiff challenges from Keith Alban, Freddie Gabriel, Ashoo Jain, Peter Zajac and T.J. Beebe in the second half.

Over the past couple of years, there’s been sort of a "dual" for the top spot in junior boys’ ranking among these players. Over much of the past year, it looked like Keith was pulling away as he dominated junior table tennis. However, Sunny went on a surge last fall, winning the Potomac Open and, combined with the North American Teams, had wins over Todd Sweeris, Eric Owens, Sean Lonergan and Shao Yu. The result? Sunny is now not only again the #1 rated player under 18, he’s #1 under 22 as well.

He is the only junior player in the U.S. with a win over a 2600+ player – 2645-rated Todd Sweeris – as well as over 2598-rated Eric Owens.

From 1991 through 1998, Sunny was continuously the National Junior Singles Champion for at least one age group. (Last year, he had to miss the Junior Nationals because of SAT tests.) Twice he won not only his age group, but the age group above. In fact, in the years he didn’t sweep two age groups, he was usually in the final of at least two, battling it out with the older juniors.

Sunny, 17, resides in Potomac, Maryland, and plays at both the Maryland Table Tennis Center and the Potomac Country Table Tennis Club. He plays about four times a week, mostly with Coach Jack Huang and Gao Jun, and sometimes with Todd Sweeris and Sean Lonergan.

He is known for his strong serves and strong backhand. He is basically a two-winged looper, but with a powerful backhand hit as well. Even the best players in the country have great difficulty stopping his serve & loop game – not only are his serves among the best in the U.S, but he can loop from both sides equally well, so there’s nowhere to go.

Yet even Sunny has his bad days. He seems to always be at his best at the Junior Nationals, while not always playing as well in less important matches – until his back is against the wall.

On February 5 (the day before the interview for this article took place), Sunny won the Maryland February Open over Sean Lonergan, coming back from down 2-1 in games in the final. When he needed to win, he played better and better. Yet, he was almost knocked out earlier by 12-year-old Han Xiao, who, although the top Under 14 player in the U.S., was rated "only" 2255 to Sunny’s 2546. Han won the first two games, and led 11-5 in the third before Sunny’s "back was to the wall." From there on, it was all Sunny, who said that he was inspired to come back because of all of the hard work he’d gone through to regain the #1 junior spot. "It’s almost impossible for me to gain rating points now, and if I’d blown that match, it would have taken forever to get them back," he said.

Sunny comes from a table tennis playing family. His older brother, Andy, was rated over 2250 as a junior, and was actually up 20-18 championship point against Keith Alban in the National Under 18 Boys’ Singles Championships in 1997, in addition to a number of other national titles. Sister Ginger was the Under 12 Girls’ Junior Olympic Champion in 1998. Even his father, Alex, has been rated over 1500.

How did they all get started? Back when Sunny was 7 and Andy was 9, the two started taking lessons from Coach Zhi-Yong Wang, then a Maryland coach (but now coaching in California). It started out as once-a-week sessions, but gradually they began to play more and more. When Wang moved away, Coach Jack Huang became Sunny’s and Andy’s coach, and has been so for about nine years now. Soon, sister Ginger joined in, and all three began winning national titles.

When the very quiet, soft-spoken Sunny is not playing table tennis, he likes to hang out with his friends and watch movies. He likes to read biographies and philosophy books because he likes to read about what other people think. He said he used to hate school, but now thinks school is okay. Of course, school isn’t just classes – Sunny made his high school basketball team as a shooting guard. He says he was a good dribbler.

Sunny will graduate from high school in June, and will join Andy at University of Maryland this fall. He is thinking about going into law, and so may try to get into the pre-law program. However, he said he will continue to practice. "I really want to make the U.S. Team soon," he said when asked about his goals. "I have to keep on improving – I’m always trying to improve. There’s no point in playing if you aren’t trying to be your best."

His other goal? He really wants to make the 2004 Olympic Team. He’ll be a senior in college when the U.S. Olympic Trials take place. So … he may be competing in the Olympics in August, 2004 … and starting law school one month later. If he doesn’t win gold in one, perhaps he’ll earn it in the other?