By Michael Reff
Press Committee Chair

Texas Wesleyan’s Jiaqi Lin is a star athlete that just wrapped up her studies in Sports Communications. She had quite ambitious goals for this year’s NCTTA Championships, as she was looking to end her college table tennis career with a bang.

Lin hails from Sichuan, China. She had an interesting start to the sport: according to Lin, her parents “were worried that I would inherit their poor eyesight, and I was not in good health when I was a kid, so they decided to let me try playing table tennis.” It was love at first sight, and the hard work paid off.

Like the rise and fall of a high toss serve, Lin has been ever resilient in her career through numerous trials and tribulations, eventually overcoming the obstacles due to “so much love for this sport.”

“I have won many awards in my country.” Lin says.

In addition to a provincial title, she has “won the top three in all-China competitions many times.” Lin has played professionally for close to 10 years, enabling her to be an elite international student athlete. “I am very lucky and happy,” she remarks.

Lin had a dream run in her last NCTTA champs, clinching the Women’s Doubles with future singles champion Zhen Deng and the Women’s Teams championships with Deng and the rest of their team.

Lin made valiant efforts in the Women’s Singles event, until succumbing in the semifinals to Angie Tan (UCLA) 1-4 in games. Zhen Deng avenged her teammate, clinching the title with a swift 4-0 finish.

When asked what her post graduation plans were, Lin says that in the near future she will continue her table tennis career. It just depends on if she will “stay in the United States or go to Europe to play leagues.”

For a high caliber student athlete of Lin’s experience, she has some words of wisdom for upcoming NCTTA players: “My advice to other upcoming NCTTA college athletes is to enjoy the game and enjoy college life!”

Congratulations Jiaqi on a dream run playing for Texas Wesleyan, and best of luck in your future plans!

(Photo of Jiaqi Lin. Photo credit to: Yukong Zhang)