Ping-Pong? Child Game. Table Tennis? His Ticket to Rio

HALMSTAD, Sweden -- Kanak Jha is not certain when he left the shift. He believes it was possibly when he was 9 or 10. He doesn't recall the precise moment, but he understands it was significant the same.

"I think it was kind of a sudden," he said recently. " I just started doing it. I said, 'table tennis' instead of 'Ping-Pong. "'He paused. " I guess since that is what I was playing.

"The distinction might appear to be only semantics. However, the difference between Ping-Pong (a sport largely connected with basements, fraternity houses and rec centers) and table tennis (a sport with more than 200 national institutions worldwide) is substantial. If it were not, Jha would not have moved, about 5,500 miles away from his Northern California home, to train five or five hours a day with some of the best coaches in the world in preparation for the Rio Olympics.

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In 16, Jha is the first American athlete born at the 2000s to qualify for the Olympics, and his hope -- for now -- is that his drama will increase the recognition of a sport that to many Americans is best called a good diversion on a rainy day in summer camp.

Like many players, Jha is fascinated with twist. Topspin, sidespin, backspin. That is exactly what distinguishes proficient table tennis players in the just-knock-it-back audience one may encounter at Susan Sarandon's Ping-Pong social club in Manhattan or, possibly, at recess. Spin is all in table tennis, while it is controlling a point having an impossibly whipping function or looping a return from a couple feet behind the table. Spin is exactly what Jha began learning shortly after taking up the match when he was 5 (his parents frequently played with his sister), and it's exactly what raised him at the eighth grade, when he dominated his classmates during the Ping-Pong unit of his institution's physical education class. Spin is why he's here.

One recent afternoon, Jha arrived at the Halmstad Arena shortly after 8:30. Some junior players were practicing in a few of those 19 tables in the room (sparring, in the vernacular), however, Jha went into the opposite end and also began a series of physical training exercises designed to stretch and strengthen his thighs and enhance his agility and reactions. For almost an hour he did not touch his encounter.

His coach, Douglas Jakobsen, is the son of Mikael Andersson, a longtime official in world table tennis that fulfilled Jha four decades ago in a youth championship in Austria. Andersson was fascinated by Jha, who had been operating with a German trainer, Stefan Feth, who also works with the American national group. Andersson developed a connection with Jha and his loved ones, and has been the linchpin in persuading Jha to proceed to Europe.

To Andersson, Sweden, that has a strong table tennis history that includes Jan-Ove Waldner -- viewed by many as the greatest player ever was the only location where Jha could properly accelerate his development.

"I believed it might really help Kanak to maintain a situation like we have here," Andersson said. " To have the ability to train with and play against top players, international players, daily is something that he could not have in America. There are fantastic trainers there, but there's nothing like being in a group. You require competition.

"Jha first visited Halmstad when he was 13. He recalls being awed by the professionalism of the club, one of the very highly regarded in Europe. There was the training, sure, led to the former world champion Ulf Carlsson, along with the caliber of players was large, also. However, the devotion to covering all aspects of the sport was what stood out most. Jha had not done much physical training away from the desk. At Halmstad, such additional work is viewed as critical.

Jha began visiting the club several times per year and arrived last autumn to live here full time, and to play for the club in its various leagues and tournaments. He starts most days with Jakobsen, darting over and around ropes and discs on the ground, and springing to scoop a small soccer ball that Jakobsen drops randomly in front of him.

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All these drills assist Jha react faster through matches and, regardless of his small and spindly physique, give him a much more powerful foundation from which to rise up and into his shots. His heart is the thing that enables him to whip his entire body and twist the ball, rifling forehands that arc so sharply they resemble a diving paper plane or clipping backhands so deeply they seem to have wheels.

"You Want to have a Great Deal of explosiveness, to Have the Ability to snap the buttocks," Jha said. " People would not think it, but it's sort of like the beginning to a 100-meter dashboard. You have to be able to fire.

"If that seems hard to envision for a game contested over a face smaller than several dining area tables, 1 need only watch Jha work. After finishing with Jakobsen, he combined the first-team training session, bouncing side to side and forward and back while sparring with another player, then smacking shots, over and above, during a high-intensity session called multiball in which a coach quickly patters balls to a player from a basket.

During breaks, Jha sometimes grappling with other players -- most of whom were considerably older -- but mostly concentrated on his strategy, pantomiming a variety of strokes going into a side table to strike functions.

"Kanak is youthful, but He's very concentrated," said Mattias Karlsson, a top player for Halmstad. " Sometimes we forget how young he is. He's still learning.

"Jha easily admits he is, in many ways, still a kid. He shares a small apartment here with his sister, Prachi, who is also an accomplished player and collaborated with all the Halmstad women's team (she will go back to the United States later this year to begin college). The apartment, that is a brief walk from the arena, has a tiny kitchen, double bedsplus a secondhand couch and a small bathroom with a door handle that can be held up with tape. Jha sits on a low stool when he does his online high school work and spends a lot of his spare time watching table tennis on the internet or browsing Netflix.

He misses his family, he explained, but he also knows that coaching in Sweden is an irreplaceable experience. This year, Jha played matches mostly for Halmstad's second group; following season he hopes to make additional appearances for the first team and continue to come up with his international career. On July 8 he defeated his Olympic teammate Yijun Feng, 10-12, 6-11, 12-10, 5-11, 14-12, 11-7, 11-9, to win the men's singles title in the United States nationals. In doing so, Jha became the youngest men's national champion since 2009.

Qualifying for the Olympics was a similarly striking experience. Playing in Canada, contrary to a Canadian, he rallied from 5-0 down in the last set to win, 11-5, and claim his berth. However, Jha has quantified expectations for Rio: He is rated 272nd in the Earth, and he stated he'd believe his performance a victory if he won three games at the preliminary rounds to make it to the main draw of the individual tournament. (He will even compete with the United States in the team contest)This type of result would be an impressive achievement. But for the moment, Jha is fixated on continuing to improve his game and demonstrate the consequences that the best players -- a few of whom are training alongside him -- create against him. He chooses affirmations wherever he can locate them.

In a practice game here this spring, Jha was backed up through a stage, chopping back a set of smashes out of his opponent. Finally, the opponent hit a shorter shot that angled off the face of the desk along with Jha deftly stepped, swinging his racket on the backhand and sending an off-balance return loaded with spin that the ball bent around the internet ping pong tables medium.com like a crescent until it skimmed off the border of the table on the opponent's side.

Jha threw his hands up in party, proud of the moment of true spinning mastery. His competitor gave a cursory nod of acceptance. Jha looked around, but there was little recognition from anybody else. The coaches continued prowling. Another players kept pounding their shots, and also the click-clack noise of rallies never ceased.

Jha stared for an instant, his torso. He then wiped his forehead, walked up to the table and then went back to work.