(By: Amy Zhang)

This summer was a tremendous match season for me – Amy the Chopper. Both Pan American Youth Championships and WTT Youth Contender Charleston were held in West Virginia USA this year. Before summer started, I have received invitation from national head coach to join the Pan American US camp followed by Pan American Youth Championships tournament and have been looking forward to it. My best memory on this journey is the team event in Pan American U15 Girls Tournament. My team – a group of U15 girls had several hard games with Brazil in the round-robin stage. We had quarter-final match with Peru and semi- final with Ecuador. We met Canada in the final. Last year, I was also in the U15 girls team and played Pan American Championship. I beat the top seed in Canada last year so I’m confident our team can take the Canadian team in the final.

After the draw, I was chosen to be the first player to play with their top seed in the first match. Since I’m a chopper, my main mission in this team event was to play long games to exhaust her and try to take her in the last game. It did happen as planned and I played 41 minutes during this match. I had a very disadvantage lag at the beginning of the fifth game and this caused a disadvantage for me to catch up in the end. I was a bit frustrated after I lost but In the following match of my teammate against the same opponent, I was happy to see my teammate beat this opponent easily as she was quite exhausted after my extra-long game with her.

However, when I see my other teammate lost the third match and the team to team score became 2:2, I realized I have to come up to be the last player to play the last match. Thinking that this last match result will affect my team, my country to be champion or not, I feel a big pressure on the shoulder but at the same time I feel I really love this spicy feeling to challenge myself. My first two games were kind of easy as I got 11:4 and 11:4 both. But the last game was extremely hard when I felt the victory was so close to my eyes. I can clearly sense the opponent was trying her last best to beat me. She tried extra hard to loop up every ball I chopped as I tried to get it heavier and heavier. I’m a chopper, well, to chop the ball heavy-spin is my natural job. But as the scores getting closer to 9:8, I feel I need to have a strategy change. I purposely created a non-spin ball and there the opponent looped out. The last point I got was from attacking. I feel it’s a good time for me to attack her as she was scared at the moment. I seized the chance.

Yes, I made it! Our team U15 made the championship. Everyone in the team was excited, jumping, cheering and that moment I feel all my hard work of the training was rewarded.

I’m heading to World Youth Championship the second time of my life to represent USA for U15 team this  year and my new mission is just beginning.