At 16, Kanak Jha of US youngest male TT player at Rio

New York, June 30

Kanak Jha is having quite a year. He spent nine months playing professional table tennis in Europe, threw out the first pitch at a New York Mets game on his birthday and qualified for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

And get this: He’s only 16.

“I’m happy that I’m the youngest, but I don’t think about it so much,” said Jha, who in April, when he was still 15, became the youngest male to qualify for table tennis in Olympic history. “In the end, it’s just men.”

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook and Twitter @thetribunechd)

If he sounds mature for his age, he comes across that way. Jha’s competitive during a match, but easygoing away from the table. He recently trained at the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center in the New York area with his five Olympic teammates and signed autographs for fans.

“He has a good fighting spirit,” said US Olympic coach Massimo Costantini. “Sometimes at that age, they get upset and are not mature. We’re working on the mental side to make him stronger. A simple mistake can compromise the entire match. You need a strong mental balance. It’s not just managing success, but failure.”

Yip, who competed for the US in table tennis at the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Games, is the US girls’ national junior team coach. She hosted the current Olympic team for an exhibition match at her club in Dunellen, New Jersey.

Although he lost the match to an older and higher-rated Chinese player, Jha drew warm applause from the mostly Asian audience.

The Chinese men and women are the best in the world. Since the 1988 Olympics, China has won 47 medals, followed by South Korea (18).  The US has never one a medal in the sport. Gold-medalist Jike Zhang will return to defend his title in Rio, where competition begins August 6. — AP