It began as a whim. It nearly ended as a miracle. The 2020 Chinese Table Tennis Super League was dramatic even before it began. The most competitive table tennis league in the world features a large percentage of the world's top players, most of whom have the luxury of playing in their home country. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic added another degree of difficulty, as all participants must remain ensconced in a metaphorical "bubble" for safety. Thus, the usually rich international field was limited to those players willing to stay sequestered in China since last month's ITTF events (World Cup, ITTF Finals and/or WTT Macao). This limited the league's foreign contingent to five women and one man. The lone male international, Lin Yun-Ju of Taiwan, made his services available to the Shandong Weiqiao club, one of nine men's teams duking it out in a round-robin for four playoff spots. The partnership has proved propitious, as Shandong Weiqiao finished in second place, well-positioned for tomorrow's semifinals. One of the nine women's teams consisted entirely of the remaining five expatriates: Cheng I-Ching (Taiwan), Doo Hoi Kem (Hong Kong), Jeon Jihee (South Korea), Adriana Diaz (Puerto Rico) and team captain Lily Zhang (USA). This unlikely alliance of lovable misfits was officially registered as the ITTF World Professionals. After a vision quest, however, they were visited by their spirit animal and shall henceforth be known as "Team Koala." The odds were never in their favor. Playing against all-Chinese teams in China's best league is as tough as it gets, even for a lineup as talented and experienced as Team Koala. In the very first round, they failed to win a single game against Shenzhen University, captained by world #1 Chen Meng. Despite the rough start, koalas never say die. They rallied to win their next two matches, and went on to finish in sixth place with three wins and five losses. While it is more than respectable to finish in the middle of the pack in the world's toughest league, it certainly must be frustrating to finish on the dreaded "bubble," just two wins away from the playoffs. In a year with more challenges than Nostradamus could have predicted, Team Koala not only accepted an impossible mission but nearly pulled it off. Hollywood, are you getting the idea yet?

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