American Crystal Wang turning heads in table tennis at age 13

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — A four-time world team member and national doubles table tennis champion, Han Xiao just barely missed a spot to compete for the USA in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. After the disappointment, he took a hiatus from the sport, only to return in January of 2014.

As he headed over to the Maryland Table Tennis Center he told his wife he was going to practice with a 12-year-old girl. The practice didn't seem like the ideal challenge for a grown man.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "It sounds weird. My wife said, 'A 12-year-old girl? Really?' "

But once you know more about this particular girl, Crystal Wang, who turned 13 on Feb. 23, it makes a lot more sense.

"Now I practice with her all the time, and I'm going full force," said Xiao, 28, who hit with her on Wednesday at the club and had to grab some much-needed water after a few rounds with the newly-minted teen. "It's very easy to forget how young she is."

Wang, a seventh-grader, already has an impressive résumé: She is the youngest player to make the USA national team (men or women), the youngest to win an under-22 singles title at nationals (also among men or woman) and the youngest to make the final of the men's or women's singles at nationals.

Wang will be missing her rigorous math and science classes at Roberto Clemente Middle School, a magnet school in Germantown, Md., to compete in the 2015 World Team and Pan-Am Trials on the campus of Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth this weekend. Wang knows that making the Pan-Am and world teams would help her achieve her ultimate goal of competing in the Rio Olympics in 2016.

"I'm kind of nervous right now," admitted Wang as she squeezed in some last-minute practice time before heading to Texas. "I'm just looking at videos at how I'm playing and practicing strategies."

The women's competition in Fort Worth will be especially tight as several top players will be vying for one of three spots on the Pan-Am team and one of four for worlds. Wang enters the trials ranked fourth and will face the likes of 2012 Olympian Lily Zhang, but she does have a good chance of making the world team as two top entrants at the trials are Chinese-born and are ineligible to represent the USA at worlds. (The two women can compete in the Pan-Ams, however.)

There is a good reason why the women will be nervous about facing Wang. An aggressive player known for a wicked backhand, Wang has made impressive runs against many opponents much older and more experienced than she. She was the lone female participant in a 16-player field at the Grand Final of the North American Table Tennis Tour in Pleasantville, N.Y., in February and upset the No. 9 seed in the round-robin stage.

"She is playing like Michael Phelps swims," said Sean O'Neill, a two-time U.S. Olympian who is USA Table Tennis' director of communications. "She trains a lot but she also faces different hitting partners, so it would be like a tennis player who one day is playing (Roger) Federer and the next day facing Novak Djokovic. Her club is so strong that they bring in all sorts of practice players. If she needs to face lefties, they bring them in."

At 5-foot-6, Wang is tall for her age and for the sport, and that gives her extra power, but it is her mental strength that really seems to give her the edge.

"She has a certain unflappability," said Gordon Kaye, CEO of USA Table Tennis. "When I watch her play she has such focus. She would lose a point but she wouldn't get upset."

Wang admitted she had some butterflies when she reached the final at the USA Table Tennis Championships back in December in Las Vegas. Yet that didn't bother her once she reached the tables. En route to the final, Wang defeated the top seed to become the youngest player to reach the men's or women's singles final. With hundreds of people watching her in the final, Wang said it was the first time she felt the pressure of so many eyes upon her.

"It was a good experience and I learned a lot from that," Wang said. "I learned what I should not do."

Wang, who was born in Tucson, Ariz., first picked up a paddle when she went to visit her grandparents in China when she about 5. She was so small, she could not see above the table.

"I stood on a board so I could see," Wang said.

At first, Wang was not too interested, saying, "I thought it was really tiring and boring."

Her family moved to Maryland and there, she began to appreciate how the sport could help her physically and mentally.

The never-ending challenges of how to take on various opponents and learn new skills continues to motivate her. That's why she can be found practicing two hours a day after school and at least two hours, sometimes three, on Saturdays and Sundays. Jack Huang, who has coached Wang she since was about 5½, picks her up from school and takes her to the training center. She arrives at about 3 p.m., trains and does her homework at the center.

Wang took a long pause when asked about the last time she missed a day. The only times are when she's sick or at a tournament. In the summers, she said she spends at least a month, sometimes longer, training as much as six hours a day in China.

Huang, a former member of the dominant Chinese national team, said he could tell right away that Wang had potential.

"You could tell by the way she moves and she learned things really fast," Huang said. "I am very happy for her. I told her this weekend just to play her best and that everybody has some weakness."

Right now, it doesn't appear that Wang has too many.