"Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm?" asks Yoda of a characteristically whiny Luke Skywalker, adding, "And well you should not, for my ally is The Force." Like Master Yoda, Hansini Mathan's relatively small stature belies tremendous power. Not only is the 11-year-old Mathan ranked #1 in India for girls under 12, she is among the top ten in the national cadet (under 15) rankings, and is the only girl on the list under 13 years of age. "I have been practicing table tennis for the past four years and it is through my elder brother I started to love to play table tennis," says Mathan, a right-handed attacker who never yields the offensive initiative. On February 22, 2020, a seeming eternity ago before the COVID-19 pandemic, Mathan won a bronze medal in the Swedish Junior and Cadet Open, her ITTF debut. Competing in the Mini-Cadet Girls’ Singles, Mathan notched two solid wins before bowing out in the semifinals to 13-year-old Luliia Pugovkina of Russia in four hard-fought games. For perspective, Pugovkina at the time ranked #108 in the world among cadets. After only one ITTF tournament, the rest of the year effectively canceled by COVID-19, Mathan still weighs in at #388 among all girls under 15. Much of Mathan's meteoric movement can be credited to her coach, Muralidhara Rao, mentor of India's all-time men's champion Sharath Kamal Achanta: "One day Hansini came to watch her cousin play in the academy," recalls Rao. "I gave her a bat asking her to play and the way she was returning the ball impressed me. As a table tennis expert coach, I felt that this girl has the potential to make it big so I asked her mother to put her in the academy. "Soon she proved it by becoming U-10 champion within one year and then clinched U-12 title too," continued Rao. "We are targeting 2028 Olympics and we look at Hansini as one of the strong medal prospects." Hansini Mathan clearly has the talent and drive to make historic strides for India, an emerging table tennis power long overshadowed by its neighbor to the northeast. "My dream is to win an Olympic medal for India," Mathan confides. China, you had better keep practicing. The Force is strong with this one.

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