Alina Wen didn’t know what to do with her evenings after she moved to Martha’s Vineyard from Shenzhen, China. She began looking in the papers, scanning the listings for some activity and came across a notice for a ping pong club. Why not, she thought.
The club is held two nights a week in the regional high school cafeteria, where tables and chairs are pushed aside to make room for three ping pong tables. In the transformed cafeteria, Ms. Wen found a passion and an eclectic group who shared it. On some evenings the players will include a rabbi, a former MIT track and field star, a potter, a retired teacher and a landscaper. The all meet with paddles in hand and one thing on their minds: table tennis, also called ping pong.
On an evening not too long ago, Ms. Wen arrived at the high school dressed in a yellow shirt, black leggings and mint sneakers. She wore her hair pulled back in a bun with a headband, blue eyeshadow and red lipstick.
She picked up her paddle and faced off against Rod Backus, current all-Island champion. Last year at Chappy Pong, an unsanctioned tournament in August, Mr. Backus snatched a win from Ms. Wen. Mr. Backus is Ms. Wen’s stiffest competition. No matter what she serves him, he’ll return it. She served with a slice, throwing the ball up and cutting under, her paddle almost horizontal.
Ms. Wen had played table tennis sparingly as an elementary school student in China, messing around on a concrete table. She’d also played tennis and badminton. When she began playing on the Vineyard, she was at the bottom of the pack.
“The other players were so good, they didn’t want to play with me because I was a beginner,” she recalled. Though she came into the club as a beginner, she quickly discovered that she had a knack for the game.
In May she took home the first place trophy in the U-1500 singles table tennis competition sponsored by the Massachusetts Table Tennis and Badminton Club in Waltham. She also came in second in the U-1800 division. Table tennis players are ranked through sanctioned tournaments. Top players are ranked 2000 or 2500. Ms. Wen is currently ranked 1465, the highest on the Island. Her goal is to reach 1800. But she doesn’t just play for the prizes, she has found the game to be engaging — physically and mentally.
“Ping pong, you can play all ages, women and men can blend together because you have to use your power carefully,” she said. “It’s all about coordination, your hand and feet, your brain.”
Club member Geoffrey Borr said her footwork is the best of the club. He has been playing for years, and is also a past all-Island championship title holder.
“I’m one of her punching bags,” Mr. Borr said. “One thing I especially like about how she plays, she’ll sacrifice the point in order to work on something, but if she plays with her most difficult serve, I can’t beat her.”
But it wasn’t by luck that Ms. Wen rose to the top of the table tennis pack. She studied under coaches, played in Pensacola, Fla., New Orleans, La., and Tallahassee, Fla.. When she’s not burning up the table, Ms. Wen works at Edgartown Bike rentals with her husband Frank Jennings. She bikes, walks and swims to stay on top of her game.
“You really have to have energy to play,” she said. “Ping pong looks easy but if you play at a certain level, I’m out of breath.”
At the Vineyard club members play best out of five with 11 points a game. To sharpen their skills, some of the players in the club have robots — machines that spit out ping pong balls for solo practice. Though robots are great for working solo, nothing beats challenging a champion.
“The best way to improve yourself is to play the players above yourself,” Ms. Wen said. But it’s getting hard to find players at her level. “Our Island is a small place, people come and go,” she said.
Bob O’Rourke, club president, said Ms. Wen has a strong competitive nature that is balanced with kindness.
“She always has a smile on her face,” he said. “She’ll want to beat you and she wants to do it in a nice way,” he said.
Along with the rest of the club, Ms. Wen wants to see a younger crowd to get interested in table tennis. At 49, she’s at the top of her game, but sees the engagement necessary for the sport as a excellent developmental tool for kids. Unlike other sports, ping pong relies on more than strength and agility.
“It’s about being sneaky combined with skills,” she said. “Your brain is constantly working for strategies.”
What she thought might be a good way to spend Tuesday and Thursday evenings turned into so much more when she picked up a paddle.
“When I started to play I found out this is my sport,” she said. “I have so much passion for ping pong.”
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