Table tennis star Lin aims for nationals

Long before he moved to the United States from China at the age of nine, freshman Pan Lin wielded a table tennis paddle. Lin has played the sport since he was five, and in December he will attempt to make the U.S. national team for the first time.

Lin, raised by his grandparents in Beijing, China, moved to New York City to live with his parents after elementary school. He did not stay in the city for long as his middle school years were marked by moves from New York to New Jersey and back. He even returned to China for seventh grade and was home schooled.

"It was very hard for me moving from places to place in a new country," Lin said, "and I missed my friends and family back in China dearly. However, table tennis has made the transition much easier."

Some of Lin's first memories are of him and his friends playing ping-pong in his hometown of Beijing.

"I started playing a long time ago," he said. "I still remember playing ping-pong on the ground and off the wall with my friends back in Beijing when I was five."

Lin credits his mother for first exposing him to the sport of competitive table tennis at age 10. She took him to the New York Table Tennis Club (NYTTC) in Flushing, New York, where he was fortunate to meet the owner of the club, a well-respected table tennis coach, Liu Huiyuan.

"After I took a few lessons with him and won some local junior events, I fell in love with the sport," Lin said.

Lin has been winning ever since. Now he trains under of new coach David Zhuang, a current national team member and an Olympian.

Lin says that the high points of his career thus far have been winning the Under 16 Boys Junior Olympics gold medal, the Under 16 Junior Nationals in 2002, and the Under 18 Junior Olympics gold medal in 2003. Currently, he is No. 4 in the nation among boys under 18.

Despite these accomplishments, Lin is not fully satisfied. With his failed attempt to make the starting rotation of the U.S. junior national team last December fresh in his mind, Lin is able to stay motivated and focused while training to reach his next goal.

"My ultimate goal is to make the 2008 Olympics in my home city, Beijing," Lin said. "I also will try to qualify for the U.S national team every year."

In order to try out for the Olympic team, Lin says he will need to stay competitive for the next few years and improve his national ranking to better his seeding for the tryout.

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"I might also consider taking a year off to train overseas before the tryout," he said. "In the meantime, I'll be competing for a spot on the national team."

This year, the national team tryouts will be held in Las Vegas in December.

With so many competitions to prepare for, Lin has had to maintain a rigorous practice schedule. In high school, Lin practiced three to five times a week either in Westfield, N.J. or at the NYTTC in Flushing.

College life, however, has altered his training schedule. Lin currently plays most of his table tennis on the weekends and sometimes plays with Princeton's club on the second floor of Dillon Gymnasium. This summer, as he has done for the previous four summers, Lin will train in China, where he plays table tennis six hours a day, six days a week.

Although being at Princeton has limited the time Lin can spend around a ping-pong table, he is still determined to work on other aspects of his game.

"College has definitely cut down on my training schedule," Lin said. "I have less of a chance to train systematically, but I still remain disciplined enough to work on other areas of my game such as my strength, footwork and endurance."

Lin's footwork and his overpowering forehand are his biggest strengths. He describes himself as a very aggressive player with a forehand-oriented game.

Even with such weapons, Lin recognizes the need to improve.

"I need to improve on staying focused during the entire match and never underestimating the ability of my opponents."

Despite the sport's stranglehold on Lin's life, he does have interests other than table tennis. Besides playing basketball and soccer among friends, he is a huge international soccer fan — the type that wakes up in the wee hours of the morning to watch his favorite team play.

Planning to get certificates in both finance and Chinese at Princeton, Lin hopes to start his own business , once his table tennis days are behind him.

"I know for a fact that ping-pong will always be a part of my life, either as a player or as a coach," Lin said. "Through ping-pong I have met all types of people from different backgrounds and have broadened my horizons."