I grew up in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
When I was in 11th grade, I was the back-up player for our high school team (or secondary school in Canada) where we won the provincial team championship in table tennis. The top 3 players played. I just tagged along. I did not play a single set or match but I was happy we won. We had to go to inner BC to play in the tournament and stayed at a hotel there.
The following year, my last year of high school (or secondary school), I was playing in the second position. We made it to the playoff pretty easily. We were a strong team no doubt but We knew who our biggest threat was. And that team was definitely better than our team. In the peliminary team group round robin, we went to the deciding match with a school whose top player beat all three of us senseless. Against their second player, I was up 1:0 (back then, each set was up to 21 points). I was playing with Jpen with long pips on the back. But in the second set, we were tied at 20:20 and I knew that I had to wrap up the win. We had to, had to win our round robin group. If we were placed second in that group, we would end up meeting the powerhouse in the quarterfinal or semifinal. I used my long pips to return the serve and won the set and the match. It was a cheap point but I gotta do what I gotta do.
Then of course we made it through to the teams final pretty easily in the single elimination part of the tournament before we had to meet the powerhouse. We lost 1:4 pretty quickly but we got second place in the province. Hey, second place was and is not bad! If I had lost that match in the team round robin group, we might not have placed in the top four at all.
After that, my table tennis career went downhill and I never came back
