Okay, so there's this table tennis wonder kid named Michael Tran. He is from Minnesota and is in the second grade. He recently won an event at the U.S. Open Table Tennis Tournament back in July, against adults much older than him.
I myself played him at a tournament in May of this year. I won the first two games quite easily, then he won a game off me. I then took the next game to finish him off. But my oh my was it strange playing this kid. For one, he attracted lots of onlookers, so here I am at 45, having to play pretty hard to beat this kid. His parents were also right there watching. Nice added pressure that I then had the responsibility of eliminating him from the tournament in front of mom and dad.
You look across the table and it's like all you see is this paddle sticking up, he's very short (which is how I beat him, with quick shots to his forehand that he just couldn't get to). But the fact that I'm talking about how I managed to come through to beat a 7-year old kid is just very bizarre.
By the way, his parents were wonderful. Very nice and supportive, and not "little league" parents. Competitive yes, but they will have him well grounded. I just fear that by the time he's 8, my time will have passed that I can still beat him.
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