“Will Shortz and the Ping-Pong Prodigy”

Yesterday, November 2nd, The New Yorker features “Will Shortz and the Ping-Pong Prodigy” by Charles Bethea.

“Five years ago, dipping into the small fortune that his crossword and Sudoku puzzles have brought him, the Times crossword editor Will Shortz bought an old “junk dealer’s warehouse,” near his home in Pleasantville, New York, and—because puzzles aren’t his only obsession—turned fourteen thousand square feet of it into a world-class Ping-Pong facility. In late October, Westchester Table Tennis Center hosted one of Shortz’s monthly club tournaments, which are the largest in the United States, boasting as much as seven thousand dollars in cash prizes and a four-star rating from USA Table Tennis. They regularly draw top talent from New York and beyond: Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, Poland, India, Mexico, Switzerland, and, of course, China.” Read More at The New Yorker