Stanford women take the title in table tennis

	The Walk-On Caley Anderson is currently a sophomore at Stanford University, and while the west coast is the best coast, she wouldn't mind living in Australia and diving on the reef everyday.
	Table tennis is a major sport overseas, but it hasn't caught on yet on college campuses. AP

By Caley Anderson

In a different country, Whitney Ping, Kyna Fong and Pat Leung could be celebrities. The three comprise Stanford University's women's table tennis team, and they just won their first national title. Not bad, considering that it's the first year that Stanford has had a team.

Most students on The Farm, however, aren't even aware there is a table tennis team, much less that they are national champions. Table tennis ignorance is, unfortunately, the rule rather than the exception in the United States.

"It's so different in the rest of the world," says Ping. "In countries like China, Korea, Japan, Sweden, Germany, and France it's absolutely enormous. The best players in the world are millionaires and respected celebrity athletes. The No. 2 men's player in the world -- Timo Boll -- is the most famous foreign athlete in China. He even [tops] David Beckham. Every time he goes to China he has to have bodyguards. It's unbelievable."

Even though she may not have bodyguards shadowing her every move, Ping is a star in her own right. She was recently named the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association's Female Player of the Year. The 19-year-old freshman was the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic squad at the 2004 Games. Her doubles partner was Jasna Reed -- a table tennis legend who already had an Olympic medal heading into Athens. The pair did not medal in the doubles competition, but Ping received quite a bit of attention -- for her name.

"It was the question I was asked the most at the Olympics," she says, sighing.

It's hard not to ask, because it stands out.

In Sports Illustrated's Olympic preview, Ping was given the title of "Best Name." While it may not be the kind of attention she hoping for, at this point anything that draws attention to table tennis helps raise awareness for the sport -- and it is a sport. It's also hard to ignore that Ping and Fong are teammates.

"I stopped calling it ping pong when I joined the team," says Leung, a senior who has only been playing for a year. "Before I joined, I'd never played any girls -- ever. But then I got to practice, and I see these girls and they can beat any of the guys there. It really elevated the sport for me."

Playing table tennis involves agility, endurance (matches can last more than an hour) and speed. You have to be quick on your feet and have a rapid-fire response time.

"A lot of people respect me for what I do because they know it's a fun thing, but they don't totally respect the sport," says Ping. "They don't really know the complexities of it, that the ball can go 80 miles per hour on a nine-foot length, with the spin. Spin is why it's so easy to make mistakes. You have to practice a lot to get the ability to read spin and react with the right kind of shot."