Table tennis, like the rest of the sporting world, is emerging from its pandemic-induced cryostasis. Like Han Solo emerging from carbonite temporarily blinded, it is still hard make out who's there. The uncertainty has been moot for over a year, as there has been nothing substantial for which to compete. Among innumerable cancellations, there was no 2020 US National Table Tennis Championships. This allowed 2019 singles champions Lily Zhang and Kanak Jha to prolong their reigns, although they certainly would have preferred an uninterrupted competition calendar. When USA Table Tennis CEO Virginia Sung announced the 2021 US National Table Tennis Championships would be held in Las Vegas this July, it signaled a long-awaited return to normalcy. Despite the auspicious harbinger, there were some unexpected wrinkles in this year's proceedings. The biggest question was whether anyone could challenge Kanak Jha for the men's singles title. Jha has won the last four titles, and has stayed sharp playing in Germany during the pandemic. With his second Olympic appearance just around the corner, Jha could surely benefit from a timely tune-up. Then it became apparent that Jha would not be participating in the national championships. Stranger still, his Olympic teammate and frequent men's singes runner-up Nikhil Kumar would not be in the mix either. With two of the three Tokyo-bound men MIA, the stage was set for the third: 32-year-old California native Zhou Xin claimed his first national championship, overcoming New Jersey's Sharon Alguetti 4-1 in the final. The 20-year-old Alguetti did not go home empty-handed, though, having earlier claimed the National Under 21 title. Zhou Xin now goes to his first Olympics, fresh off his first national championship—is someone having the best year ever? The uncertainty swirling around the men's singles draw notwithstanding, it appeared a familiar order would be restored in women's singles. Five-time national champion Lily Zhang was on duty to defend her title, taking the opportunity to work out the kinks before her third Olympics. While the 25-year-old Californian Zhang has experience on her side, she was not prepared for a display of youthful exuberance from 18-year-old Amy Wang (pictured). In another California-New Jersey final, the Garden State native Wang stunned Zhang, winning the first two games right out of the gate. Zhang recovered to win the third, however, and fought to deuce in the fourth. After quite a bit of back and forth, it was Wang who claimed the crucial game, 18-16. Confidence and momentum now firing on all cylinders, Wang won the fifth game, 11-7, and is now the US women's singles national champion. Furthermore, she evened the score at 1-1 in the nascent New Jersey-California rivalry. While the Las Vegas oddsmakers may not have picked Amy Wang to beat the Hall of Famer and Olympian Lily Zhang, she very well could have retorted with a cold Han Solo line: "Never tell me the odds."

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