Littleton – His body relaxed, his face expressionless, 13-year-old table-tennis whiz Yahao Zhang is returning serves from his coach during a practice session at the Littleton Family YMCA.
The pale orange ball whizzes back and forth, barely skimming over the net, as the players exchange shots.
Pocketa-pock, ta-pock, ta-pock, ta-pock.
They move farther apart, and the little orb arcs higher and higher, its 20-foot bounces punctuated by the hard slap of rubber soles on the hardwood floor.
Whock. Ta-whock. Ta-whock. Ta-whock.
Suddenly, both feet off the ground, the boy executes a forehand smash and – wham!- the ball goes rocketing off the far end of the table and out of reach.
Yahao allows himself a brief smile – an acknowledgement, perhaps, of the strength and passion that have made him one of the best young pingpong players in the United States and a potential front-runner for a future spot on the Olympic team.
“I’ve not seen a player his age hitting the ball with so much quality and power,” says Francisco Mendez, 50, a former nine-time Mexican national champion who puts his Chinese-born protege through a 90-minute workout three times a week. “We’re talking about a diamond in the rough.”
The few Coloradans who play at Yahao’s level, typically facing him on Sunday afternoons at the Paul Beck Recreation Center in Aurora, tend to agree with his coach’s appraisal.
“He’s unbelievably fast, he’s got strokes, he’s got footwork, and he’s smart at the table – he knows how to keep away from other people’s strengths and play to his own,” says Neal Miller, 35, who lost to the teenager in their most recent meeting earlier this year. “I used to be able to beat him, but now he just washes through me.”
Another frequent rival, Jiri Mracek, 45, offers a similar appraisal. “Yahao’s strategy is to give the ball so much spin and hit it so hard you can’t bring it back,” he says. “I used to beat him pretty easily, but he’s improved a lot in the last year. Now, most of the time, if I can take one game from him in a match, I feel pretty good.”
An eighth-grader at Merrill Middle School in southeast Denver, Yahao (“ya-how”) has been playing since he was 8. He has a wall full of ribbons and trophies in his bedroom to attest to his prowess. He could be on track to win the first U.S. Olympic medal in the sport in a generation.
When asked about his hopes, however, he is careful not to get carried away. “I just want to get better,” he says simply, his dark eyes fierce with intensity.
How good is he now? In the Junior Nationals last July, he won not only the boys’ under-14 singles title, but the under-16 title, as well – and came in second in the under-18 division. He also netted two golds in the under-14 division of the Junior Olympics, winning the boys’ singles title and pairing with Alex Wang of Texas to take the doubles.
His current goal is to do well in an international team meet in Baltimore over Thanksgiving weekend – a tough competition he knows he’ll enjoy because “no matter whether you win or lose, you keep playing.”
To become a truly world-class athlete, though, Yahao will need to train with the sport’s elite in China, where table tennis is as commonly played and closely followed as football, basketball or baseball in this country.
“The level of play is not strong in the U.S., and those wishing to become good need to travel extensively, both within the U.S. and overseas,” says Richard McAfee, a USATT national coach who has followed Yahao’s development with interest. “This takes real dedication from the juniors, great support from the parents, and financial assistance from the community.”
Yahao is sponsored by Butterfly, an equipment manufacturer that supplies him with shoes, shorts, paddles and other gear. But his parents foot the bill for his trips to tournaments – an expense that amounts to roughly $10,000 a year, including transportation, lodging and coaching fees.
The 5-foot-2, 109-pound youth, who plays recreational basketball and likes to shoot pool in his off hours, has been in this country since 2003, when his mother, Ying Zhang, married a Denver man she had met over the Internet.
A former business teacher at a technical college in Nanning, a city of 2 million in southern China near Vietnam, she usually accompanies Yahao to practice, serving both as his ball shagger – using a net to scoop dozens of the hollow spheres off the floor – and his No. 1 fan.
“I don’t want to just teach him table tennis,” she has told his coach. “I want to help him become a better person.”
Both Yahao and his mother expect to receive their green cards as permanent residents soon, but because of tightened requirements, it may take them a few more years to become naturalized U.S. citizens.
Yahao’s stepfather, Samuel Jones, who courted his wife for a year by e-mail, recalls seeing a pingpong table in the basement when he traveled to China to meet his bride-to-be and her family.
“I saw that he played pretty good, but it was mind-boggling when I found out at what level,” Jones says of Yahao. “He’s determined to win, yet when he loses, he doesn’t get all emotional like some kids do. He’s got a mental toughness I’ve never seen, but it’s all on his own.”
Yahao also is physically tough. In a typical workout, he may hit 2,000 to 3,000 balls, perform 50 to 100 sit-ups and circle the Y’s indoor running track doing kangaroo jumps. By the end, he can leave his coach grunting and sweating, while appearing to remain as untouched as a new paddle.
To understand how skilled this teen is, a recreational player need only face him for a minute or two from the other end of the table. Forget his slams. Just try to return his serves. They appear straightforward enough, lobbing softly over the net, but when you place your paddle in position to send them back, you find the ball has somehow slithered past you. In 20 feeds, you might be lucky to connect with one.
With a flick of the wrist, Yahao can send the ball spinning up to 40 times per second, or 2,400 rpm – so fast the label on it becomes a mere shadow, and so weighted with momentum it can smack an opponent’s racket with the force of a ball bearing.
“This is the most difficult and quickest game a human being can play,” Mendez asserts. “You have just a split-second to process all this information – speed, depth, height and spin – and then execute a return. It’s very easy to miss.”
What sets Yahao apart from most of his peers, his coach says, is that in addition to speed, agility, endurance and power, he has an uncanny ability to “read” the ball and attack accordingly.
“The only way to beat him is to get him flustered,” says the vanquished Miller. “He can go as far as he wants to – or until he discovers girls, and then, who knows?”
Staff writer Jack Cox can be reached at 303-820-1785 or jcox@denverpost.com.
