Tamkang University Table Tennis Teams had excellent performance during the Tamkang Cup National inter-collegiate Table Tennis Invitation, held on October 31 and November 1 at TKU, winning championship title at the team Women category, and a silver in the Team Women category of the Alumni competitions.

The men’s team also had great performances, who took the sixth place in the Team Men category. Meanwhile, in individual performances, Chiang Pei-ching, a sophomore in the Department of Insurance, won the silver in Women's Singles, while Ho Hsuan-hung, a senior in the Department of Innovative Information and Technology, won the fourth place in the Men’s Singles category. The TKU team won championship at the Women category after fierce competitions of a total of 23 teams. In the finals, the TKU team was facing fierce attacks from the opposition National Tsing Hua University. But the team stayed focus and beat their rivals in a hard-fought battle with an overall score 3:2.

Two members of the team, Chen Yun-ting, a senior in the Department of Banking and Finance, and Wei Ching-fen, junior in the International Trade Department, have been working as a pair since last year and therefore the two worked perfectly as a team. “We are under great pressure since we are the last team that is competing before the tournament concluded,” said Wei. “All the teammates are also doing their best to cheer us up and tell us to relax and we finally made it.”

The Men’s Team was also faced keen competition. In the game facing a strong adversary Fu Jen Catholic University, the TKU team managed to excel in an overall score 3:2 to make it to the Top 6 Matches. But sadly, in the fifth-place game, the TKU men failed to triumph over their National Taiwan University counterpart and finished the tournament in the six place overall among the 50 teams.

Chiang Pei-ching, who took the second place among 43 opponents, said that she had worked extra hard before the tournament on practicing tactics to overcome the left-hander's natural advantages. But she still couldn’t beat a lefty rival from National Chiao Tung University in the finals. However, she said it is still a great achievement for her who used to take only the fourth place in the previous event. The winner of the fourth place in the Men’s Singles category with a total of 80 opponents, Ho Hsuan-hung, said he was also very proud with his fourth place finish in the event. “In the previous tournament, I only advanced to the Final 8,”he said. Li Hsin-I, junior in the International Trade Department, who serves as the captain of TKU Table Tennis Team, said that each of her team members have practiced for six hours a week for the tournament. “The hard work really does pay off,” she said, adding that she hopes the team will continue to give strong performance in the future.

( ~Yeh Yun-kai )