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Ping pong paddlers permeate Plano: City to host college national championships
BY Kevin Hageland and Yasir Salah, khageland@starlocalnews.com
On the surface, Plano may have seemed like an odd choice to host the 2012 College Table Tennis National Championships.
Plano is well known as being the corporate headquarters for Cinemark Theatres, Frito-Lay, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and several other large companies, but it is also a haven to many top table tennis players.
It's because of that the April 13-15 event will emanate from Plano Sports Authority (601 Seabrook Drive).
The surge of table tennis struck the Metroplex in the mid-1990s.
Plano was part of that trend, with the city's strong Asian population helping further the growth of table tennis as parents often signed their children up for coaching by age 5.
Donna Chen and Jon Liu were at the forefront of the movement.
Chen is the founder and organizer of DFW Table Tennis, while Liu organized the Plano Table Tennis Club (planottc.com). Liu and the 631 members of the PTTC have made it one of the biggest table tennis clubs in the country. The group met the announcement of Plano as host city to the college national championships with enthusiasm.
"Plano Table Tennis Club, as the biggest table tennis club in Texas, is excited that NCTTA will hold its national championship tournament in Plano," Liu said.
In addition to establishing the PTTC, Liu has pushed the sport around the city in other ways. Liu approached former Plano mayor Pat Evans to consider table tennis when planning recreational facilities, a strategy that paid off as at least eight different facilities in the city offer table tennis and have between three to 11 tables per site.
Evans' involvement didn't stop there as she invited Plano resident Andrew Chen to demonstrate his skills in front of members of the city council at city hall in August 2007. Liu and Chen took advantage of the opportunity and wheeled a table into city hall.
That Chen would be part of such a display isn't surprising considering he is probably the city's most decorated player.
Chen first picked up a paddle in 2005 and began seriously training in 2006.
"Soon, Andrew went to the local recreation centers," Mrs. Chen told The PSC in 2010. "And here was this little kid popping up in the court among the adults."
Chen won singles and doubles titles at the 2007 U.S. Open, which was notable as he was the first locally-trained Texan to win U.S. Open titles as an American citizen. Chen was also the first table tennis player from the Metroplex to make the U.S. National Boys Cadet Team.
More recently, Chen finished first in the country for 16 and Under boys.
When Chen wasn't taking on the best in the country, he faced off against some of the best basketball players in the world in March 2010. Specifically the Dallas Mavericks as head coach Rick Carlisle, an avid table tennis player, invited top Metroplex players to participate in Purple Ping Pong, a charitable event at SMU's Moody Coliseum that featured Chen and company playing the Mavericks.
Chen, who still has his eyes on playing table tennis in the Olympics, was part of the first wave of talented players to come from Plano. But that influx hasn't stopped as evidenced by Planoites Jonathan Li (age 10) and Joy Li (12). The siblings started playing at age 7 and will compete in the U.S. Open Table Tennis Tournament this summer.
But before traveling to Grand Rapids, Mich. for that event, the Lis will have the opportunity to see another grand-scale tournament closer to home as the 2012 College Table Tennis National Championship comes to Plano. The April 13-15 event will boast more than 250 of the nation's top collegiate men and women players. Because of that scope, the city is still seeking volunteers for the event in a variety of capacities.
For more information, contact Cissy Aberg of the Plano Convention & Visitors Bureau at: cissya@plano.gov or: 972-941-5849.
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