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Olympic table tennis player Lily Zhang, who hails from Palo Alto, has been hard at work for the past few months as she prepares for this year’s Games in Paris. It will be her fourth appearance at the Games, where she hopes to take home the United States’ first medal in the sport.
Zhang said she picked up table tennis as a young child, playing with her parents for fun at the beginning. Her mother played professionally in Xi’an, China, when she was younger, so Zhang was exposed to the sport early.
“My dad was actually a professor at Stanford, and we lived on campus,” she said. “I remember every time we went to go do laundry, they had a table tennis table in the room, so to pass time, I would just go with them for fun and play.”
From there, she fell in love with the sport, quickly joining a local table tennis club that used to be located at the Cubberley Community Center at the age of seven. She added that being from the Bay Area, which is a hub for athletes of all kinds, really helped her thrive in the sport and grow her love for it.
Zhang excelled quickly, competing at the 2011 Pan-American Games. There, she won a team bronze medal and a bronze medal in women’s singles.
After graduating from Palo Alto High School, she attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she said her club team helped her progress and get even better.
“A lot of other schools in the U.S., they don’t actually have a [table tennis] program at all,” she added. “So I was really lucky and fortunate to even get to have that environment where I could practice.”
Zhang is no stranger to the Olympics, first competing at 16 years old at the 2012 Games in London, making her the youngest player in the table tennis competition, and one of the youngest in the entire Games that year.
“We were walking out in the opening ceremonies, and I remember it was like Kobe Bryant was on my right, and then Serena Williams on my left,” Zhang said. “I was like, this is not – it didn’t feel real, but it was just the most incredible experience to have.”
She added that she also felt very overwhelmed during the competition itself, recalling walking out in her first match to a loud and packed stadium.
“I think I blacked out during my match,” she said.
Now, going into her fourth Olympics, Zhang said that she is trying to channel more enjoyment on the court, focusing less on results and more on staying present. She added that in past games, she hasn’t played to the level she wanted because she focused too much on the results instead of the match being played.
In a sport dominated by China, and Korea and Sweden to a lesser extent, Zhang said her dream would be to bring home the United States’ first medal in the sport.
With teammates Amy Wang and Rachel Sung, who all competed together in several other tournaments, Zhang feels that they have a very good shot to win a medal this year.
“I think we have really good team chemistry,” she said. “I think we could possibly medal, but the goal is to try and try and enjoy the moment.”
Zhang will begin competing in the Olympic women’s table tennis on July 27, while the opening ceremonies begin a day earlier.