Once Retired, Wei Wang Finds Sport Too Alluring

Wei Wang is on her second career in table tennis.

Wei, who began training with the Chinese National team when she was 13, now competes with the Orange Coast College Table Tennis Club.

At 17, she was the fifth-best women’s player in China. Now 28, she’s the fourth-ranked women’s player in the U.S.

Five years ago, Wei retired from world-class table tennis, walking away from the pressures of the sport.

In 1986, she decided to come to the United States.

“I didn’t want to play Ping-Pong,” said Wei, 28. “I wanted to come to study. But somebody said, why not play just for fun?”

She has been successful, but her national ranking is deceptive. In order to move up, she must compete against players with higher ratings, most of whom are from other areas of the country.

In February, Wei defeated the top-ranked women’s player in the nation, Insook Bushong, originally of South Korea, to win the national All-Stars tournament in Pittsburgh.

In Wei’s homeland, table tennis is the national sport.

“People like the sport so much in China,” she said. “If you play volleyball or baseball, you need a partner or a team, where with Ping-Pong, you can play anytime, anywhere, if you have a racket.”

“In China, we have a very good system. In high school or the factory, at the companies, they all have Ping-Pong tables. Some people walk around with rackets.”

To keep her skills sharp, Wei--5-foot-3 and 90 pounds--plays against men.

“(Many) men players, they are physically good. But they are not good enough mentally and their skill level is not so good, so you can beat them,” she said.

“So much changes in a game that it is difficult to anticipate anything. It doesn’t depend so much on the physical. It depends on your skill.”

Wang, whom club adviser Terry Timmins calls the human backboard, gives lessons at the club for $15 an hour. And with her husband, Diego Schaaf, she produced a videotape of table tennis fundamentals called Modern Table Tennis.

Wang met Schaaf, 36, a native of Switzerland, at the Orange Coast club in 1987. They were married in March.

“We met each other very often because we went to the club everyday. We would just meet each other in the table tennis club and play Ping-Pong. We didn’t have any special thing,” Wei said.

Wei says her husband is not embarrassed to lose to her in table tennis.

Said Schaaf: “She beats me easily. Easily. She can give me 15 points and still wipe me off the table, no problem. There is no comparison of the level of her play and mine, nor will there be.

“We are not possibly rivals,” Schaaf said. “Even if I wanted, I could not challenge her. We played mixed doubles for the first time 10 days ago and we won . . . actually she won it and I didn’t bother her too much in winning.”