"Experience, the best teacher/ Thoughts will spray like street sweepers" rapped the late, great MC Guru of Gang Starr in their song, "Above the Clouds." (You owe it to yourself to check it out now. I'll wait.) In battles between equally skilled opponents, experience usually makes the difference. In the NBA, the third-seeded Denver Nuggets recently upset the second-seeded and heavily favored Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference semifinals. While the Clippers boasted the superior collection of talent, albeit hastily assembled, the chemistry and cohesion of the longer-tenured Nuggets proved the decisive factor as they came back from a 1-3 deficit to win the series in seven. In table tennis, as in all sports, there is window of optimum efficiency balancing the physical advantages of youth and psychological edge born of experience. Such factors were at play in the latest "Thursday Night Live: T2 Challenge," the seventh edition live streaming from the India Community Center (ICC) in Milpitas, California. This "virtual" table tennis tournament blended the fast-paced T2 scoring system with the added drama of a team competition, each player in the weekly matchups representing either Team Butterfly or Team Nittaku. Entering yesterday's contest, Team Butterfly had built a 4-2 lead in the best-of-11 series, and had enlisted Olympian Lily Zhang to get them within one match of victory. Meanwhile, Team Nittaku looked to Aditya Godhwani to pull them within one of their rivals. On paper, it was a wash, with Godhwani's USATT rating of 2563 just shy of Zhang's 2596. While both players have youth in their corners, experience clearly favors the 24-year-old Zhang, the reigning women's national champion who is officially a three-time Olympian. Godhwani, 17, has flourished under coach and fellow Team Nittaku player Zhou Xin, winner of last week's contest, but has a long way to go before he can rival Zhang's résumé. As their match began, it looked like the young veteran Zhang would run roughshod over the poor boy, dominating game one with a merciless barrage of forehands to the middle for an 11-4 win. To Godhwani's credit, he fought back in game two, pressuring Zhang with his powerful, if erratic, forehand loop. As is so often the case, game three would prove pivotal. At the first towel break, Godhwani enjoyed a 4-2 lead. Zhang would regroup, though, and win the next five points. After Godhwani rallied to tie the game at 9-all, Zhang employed her veteran savvy and called a time out. With the game and the match in the balance, Zhang held serve, first earning game point with a backhand to Godhwani's unprepared forehand, and converting with a slow topspin forehand loop which forced another error. In game four, the two talented youngsters would trade runs like relay racers. After Godhwani wins the first point with a forehand loop to Zhang's backhand corner, she responds by winning the next five points. He wins two, then she wins three, then he counters her earlier 5-0 run with one of his own to tie the score at eight. Again, with the game on the line, it is Zhang who comes up with the winning formula, running the last three balls to salt the game away for a 3-1 lead. In the midst of all this drama, the 24 minute game clock expired. Under T2 rules, each subsequent game would be a sudden death affair to five points. For Godhwani to win, he would have to win 15 points over three "Fast5" games. Unfortunately for Team Nittaku, he could muster only three, as Zhang extinguished all hope for a Denver Nuggets-style comeback with an efficient (11-4, 6-11, 11-9, 11-8, 5-3) win. As former US men's national champion Sean O'Neill commented before the match, "The bigger the stage, or the bigger the prize, the better Lily plays." In this case, the stage was a large virtual viewership and the prize was $1,000. Godhwani received $500 for his efforts. With Team Butterfly now up 5-2, Team Nittaku rests its hopes for survival on the 14-year-old shoulders of Ved Sheth, another up-and-coming Bay Area player, taking on 16-year-old Joanna Sung in next week's matchup. Experience is clearly the best teacher. The humbled student Aditya Godhwani learned this valuable lesson from his schoolmarm, Mrs. Zhang, whose forehand loop and off-the-bounce backhand sprayed him like street sweepers.

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