Junior of the Month: Katherine Wu

By Charlene Liu

Katherine, 16, started playing table tennis at the age of 8. She was actually supposed to play tennis because her dad loved tennis, but she was too small to play tennis, so her dad decided to start her out with table tennis. After a year, she told her dad that she wanted to stick with table tennis.

She started out in a table tennis class for beginners at the Rockville Chinese school in Maryland, back around 1993. Mr. Jack Hsu was her teacher and first coach. She said, "I remember always getting the most candy and awards for hitting them off the other side of the table." She became even more interested in table tennis when she went to Junior Olympics for the first time and won a silver medal in Under 10 Girls’ Singles in 1994.

She said she likes to play because it’s a sport that requires agility and fast reactions. The quickness of the sport is most appealing to her. "I have always preferred active sports, which I find more interesting to watch. It is also fascinating to see how fast people can hit a tiny little ball with so much power, speed, and spin."

Many people are curious as to how much time she spends training. On Mondays and Saturdays she trains for two hours in group training sessions at the Potomac and Maryland Table Tennis Clubs, often playing with young kids who are mostly beginners. She spends two and half hours a week taking lessons with her coach, Jack Huang. She also runs a league with her cousin, Charles Fan, and friend, Dana Huang, at the Maryland Table Tennis Center on Friday nights. On Saturdays, she sometimes goes to the Potomac Country Table Tennis Club to play practice matches. At home, she tries to practice whenever she has extra time.

Photo by John Oros copyright 2001.

"Jack Huang is a wonderful coach," she said. "He’s always encouraging me to do my best and try my hardest. He’s also very patient with me when I’m not playing well. He usually drills with me until I’m warmed up, and then he begins to correct my mistakes. He always has something to say about how I am playing to help me improve. I like him a lot because he’s one of the few coaches that will let you move him around! He’s very dedicated to table tennis and to his students."

Of her playing style, she said, "My playing style is not unique, but I think it’s a lot more fun. I prefer to hit from close to the table. My strengths are my fast blocks and hits. I use my forehand for power and winners, while I use my backhand to control the direction of the ball and my opponent. My weaknesses are usually footwork related, as I tend to lose the form in my shot when I have to move quickly. I always get in trouble for that!"

Over the next year, she said she hopes to raise her rating to around 2200. (It is currently 2037.) She also said she would like to make the 2004 USA Olympic team.

She said, "I have an advantage that most people don’t have. My dad, Jason, and my 12-year-old sister, Rita, both play table tennis. I also have two cousins – Michael Fan and Charles Fan – who play as well, and have played as long as I have. We often practice and travel to tournaments together. This makes it easier for me to play because I don’t feel like I am bothering my dad when I ask him to take me to the club. I know he likes to play and that he doesn’t feel like I’m dragging him around and wasting his time. Whenever I need someone to practice with, I know I can always count on my sister and cousins to be there. My mom doesn’t really like sports, but she’s usually the one who goes out to buy lunch or run errands to tie up the loose ends."

Katherine is sponsored by Butterfly. She uses a Primorac Carbon blade with Sriver on the forehand and Rein on the backhand. She likes the speed of the blade because she said she needs a faster blade to go with the 40mm ball. She said, "The 40mm ball has helped me in consistency and in control. It allows me to complete my shots with more ease. It has also made it easier to block and hit. However, I think that it has made table tennis slower and in a small way, less impressive because the ball doesn’t travel as fast. But, the difference hasn’t lessened my interest in the sport."

Katherine has trained in various parts of the world. She said, "I was fortunate to be invited to go on some of the USATT overseas trips with other U.S. juniors. I was part of the U.S. Junior Team that competed in Taiwan in the ‘I love Taipei First Commercial Bank Cup’ in the summers of 1999 and 2000. I also visited China during the 2000 U.S. Millennium Tour, which was sponsored by Enron. These trips were a lot of fun and very educational at the same time. It was very interesting to see the different styles of the Chinese players training over there. I learned new training techniques and strategies that I can use. I also saw the different environments that the juniors over there trained in. They are more disciplined."

She also enjoyed the non-table tennis aspects of the trip. She said, "While I was learning about table tennis skills, I was also learning about Chinese culture. My favorite things were the little crafts that were sold on the streets."

Her best tournament was the 2000 Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals in Orlando, Florida, in August, 2000. She was entered in all six events she was eligible for – and won all six! She won Junior Nationals Under 16, 18 and 22 Girls’ Singles; Junior Olympic Under 16 Girls’ singles; and Under 16 Girls’ Doubles and Teams (with teammate Chao "Kathy" Wang).

She also had a great experience at the 1999 U.S. Open. She said, "That was the first time I played against international players. I defeated a girl from Peru to get into the quarterfinals, and a girl from Taiwan to get into the semifinals. I ended up getting the silver medal for Under 14 Girls’ singles. They were tough matches, but very rewarding."

Her favorite tournament is the North American Team Championships. She said, "I like playing in that tournament because you can play many different players with many different styles. It is a good way to gain rating points and experience for future reference."

With all this table tennis, many people may wonder how she does in school. She started high school at Winston Churchill High School last year. So far, she has gotten straight A’s in all of her classes, all of which are honors classes. She is on the school’s student government as secretary, plays the flute in the school band, and is on the school volleyball team. She also goes to Chinese school on Sundays, and is a straight "A" student there as well. How does she juggle ping pong, school, flute, student government, volleyball and Chinese school? "I guess I’ve got everything under control," she said. That’s quite a juggling act.