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Interview
with Samson DubinaHow and when did you get
started in table tennis?
I was first introduced into table tennis at
age 12 when I received a flyer in the mail about table tennis at a local church.
I then met the president of the Canton Table Tennis Club, Terri Weaver. Several
months later, she invited me to practice at the local table tennis club. After 1
1/2 years, I was still only 1100. Then I started taking some lessons from Carl
Hardin and my game soon rose to 2100.
Who have been your coaches?
Carl Hardin, Attila Malek, Dejan Papic, and
Enrong Wong.
Describe your playing style.
Aggressive topspin from both sides.
You’ve been training in Canada
for a while. Tell us about that.
Last summer, I was looking for a place to
practice. My friend Wennin Chui suggested that I come to Ottawa, Canada for a
two-week training camp. The coaches agreed, so I went there and trained for a
few weeks. Then the Canadian coaches and executive director Tony Kiesenhofer
invited me back to live. In October, I moved to Canada. I practice with the
national team every day; my training partners are Faazil Kassam, Bence Csaba,
Pradeeban Peter-Paul, Homayoun Kamkar-Parsi, Xavier Therien, Paulo Chira, and
some others. Players from Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver frequently come to
Ottawa for practice. I train with the team 2-3 hours every evening and sometimes
five hours on weekends. I really enjoy playing table tennis. Because of my
Christian beliefs, I try to work hard every practice session. In the Bible it
says: “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for
men (Colossians 3:23) I will not always be playing table tennis competitively,
but at this season in my life, I would like to see how good I can get. I would
like to be able to train in Canada for another year or more. I would really
like to live at a training center in the United States with dedicated players
who want to practice 5-6 days a week.
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