Yue "Jennifer" Wu

Yue “Jennifer” WU (Newark, NJ) left Toronto with two golds from two events and a ticket to Rio. An unseeded Wu won women’s singles and the women’s team at the 2015 Pan Am Games.  As part of Team, USA Wu went undefeated in singles and doubles play to help the US Women’s Team defeat Brazil 3-0 in the finals.  

In singles play Wu went undefeated in her preliminary group 2-0 and then beat LORENZOITTI (URU) 4-1, DIAZ (PUR) 4-1, KUMAHARA (BRA) 4-0, and GUI (BRA) 4-3.  In the finals Wu trailed Gui,  5-1 in the 7^th and final game before mounting an amazing comeback to win 11-7.  As the winner of women’s singles, Wu earned an ITTF Olympic Qualifying slot for the region.

Nikhil Kumar

12 year old Nikhil Kumar (San Jose, CA) of the ICC table tennis center in Milpitas had a super July winning the ITTF Hopes Challenge in Shanghai, China on June 29th - July 5th and then flew back to the US to win the US Open Under 13 title in Las Vegas on July 6th -11th. In Shanghai, Kumar beat players from Iraq, Singapore and Nigeria in the main draw after winning his preliminary group over players from Thailand, Nigeria and The Netherlands. At the US Open Kumar beat Michael Minh Tran (Rochester, MN) 3-1 to take the Under 13 crown. USATT is very proud of Nikhil’s international performance in July and look forward to even greater performances in the future.

2015 Pan Am Women's Team - Lily Zhang, Jiaqi Zhang and Yue "Jennifer" Wu

The US Women’s Team of Yue “Jennifer” WU (Newark, NJ), Lily ZHANG (Palo Alto, CA) and Jiaqi ZHENG (Milpitas, CA) dominated the event like no other team has ever done at the Pan Am Games. Winning all five of their team matches 3-0 in shutout style was simply awe inspiring. In the prelims they dismantled the Dominican Republic and Argentina 3-0. In the knockout round they blanked Cuba, Canada and Brazil by the same score. In the semi-finals, Jiaqi Zheng stunned defending women’s singles Champion Mo Zhang (CAN) 11-9, 11-4, 11-3 to lead the charge. Seeded second in the tournament the USA faced the top seeded Brazil in the finals, however when the dust cleared once again the US Women were on top with a 3-0 victory. The key match of Lily Zhang beating Caroline KUMAHARA (BRA) 12-10 in the 5th and final game and saving a match point.