On Wednesday, July 31st at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Chinese-American table tennis player Lily Zhang was defeated by South Korean player Shin Yoo-bin in the women’s singles round of 16 match. However, Lily Zhang gained a notable fan at this Olympics – American basketball player Anthony Edwards.
It all started at the Olympics opening ceremony last Friday, when Lily Zhang and her three American table tennis teammates were on a boat chatting with NBA star Stephen Curry. When Curry found out they were table tennis players, his eyes lit up.
Moments later, the four table tennis players engaged in a brief but intense debate with Curry and his teammate Edwards, one of the brightest young stars in basketball, about whether Edwards could beat them at the table tennis. This friendly banter was captured on camera and attracted over 15 million online viewers.
After Curry jokingly said the table tennis team would beat Edwards 21-0, Edwards expressed disbelief that he would lose if he played a friendly match with them.
“Some people say they would beat me 21-0 in a table tennis match,” he said. “I don’t believe that. I disagree. I disagree… I’ll get a point.”
“You encounter a person whose first reaction is, ‘I bet I can beat you, let’s play’,” Lily Zhang said with a smile. “I don’t think you’d say that to anyone in any other sport. If you saw Michael Phelps, I don’t think you’d say, ‘I bet I can beat you in a race’.” Michael Phelps is a famous American swimmer with 28 Olympic medals, the most in history.
Later on Monday, during the women’s singles table tennis match, Edwards cheered for Lily Zhang in the crowd as she defeated Brazilian player Bruna 4-2.
After Lily Zhang won a point in the game, the camera captured Edwards standing up and cheering. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said.
Lily Zhang was the 19th seed in this Olympics, and in the round of 16 on Wednesday, she faced the 8th-ranked player in the world, the 4th seed from South Korea, Shin Yoo-bin. Lily Zhang lost the match 4-0 (11-2, 11-8, 11-4, 15-13).
Despite the defeat, this match was still Lily Zhang’s best performance at the Olympics. Aged 28, she had participated in three previous Olympics without reaching the round of 32. Considering the U.S. has never won an Olympic medal in table tennis, reaching the round of 16 was a remarkable achievement.
Lily Zhang has won the U.S. national championship six times and currently works as an investment banking analyst at JPMorgan. She hails from Palo Alto, California, graduated from Berkeley, and is the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Growing up on the Stanford University campus, where her father was a math professor, Lily Zhang is the oldest member of the U.S. table tennis team. She made her national team debut in 2012 at the London Olympics and this Olympics marks her fourth appearance for Team USA.
Anthony Edwards is one of the NBA’s rising stars, representing the United States in Paris with the aim of helping the men’s basketball team win its fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal. Edwards currently plays for the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves.
(Adapted from a report by Sports Illustrated magazine)