Kaustubh Kulkarni plays defense during the finals of a divisional table tennis tournament. (Courtesy of Kaustubh Kulkarni)
Kaustubh “KK” Kulkarni hits a fast long serve with backspin to Jiaxin Xiong’s backhand. Without enough time to react, Xiong sends the ball down into the net and the match is over.
“I directly lost that point because I didn’t expect his strategy,” Xiong said.
Kulkarni said he met Xiong through a mutual friend on the University of Colorado Boulder table tennis club team. After playing a match, the two became good friends and started practicing together in nearby Louisville, Colorado.
This year, the two are the captains of the university’s table tennis team. They competed against each other during this season’s divisional college tournament in Grand Junction, Colorado. Throughout the game, Xiong was serving the ball to Kulkarni’s backhand.
“KK was a little bit injured at the time, and he generally tries to cover most of the table with his forehand because his backhand is not so strong,” said Robby Green, a teammate who will be taking over for Kulkarni as a captain next year. Green was on the sidelines watching the match.
For Kulkarni to hit the ball with his forehand on both sides of the table, he must move his entire body to the side in a fraction of a second. But, it has become harder for Kulkarni to stick to that style of play over the years because of a long-lasting injury.
While table tennis competitions were paused during COVID, Kulkarni stopped playing table tennis and focused on academics. During this break, his first tournament came around.
“I played as if I was as fit as I was six months back when I didn’t stop playing,” Kulkarni said. “That led to a really bad back and disc injury.”
Through that injury, Kulkarni developed Sciatica.
“Sciatica is a severe pain running down the back of either leg that’s usually caused by some sort of impingement on the nerve, usually in your lower back by a herniated disc or a bone spur. This pain can also cause weakness in your legs,” said Dr. Eric Gerson.
Gerson is a radiologist at Intermountain Health St. Mary’s Regional Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado. He explained that it would be extremely difficult to play table tennis with Sciatica.
“Every time you would try and make a rapid movement, which is required to play table tennis, the leg would severely hurt and that pain would limit your ability to move normally,” Gerson said.
Green explained that during the divisional tournament, Kulkarni was still able to change positions within a split second in order to mainly use his forehand. Green was on the sideline acting as Kulkarni’s coach, and said that Kulkarni was pushing through some pain, but also had a strategy.
The score was 10-8. Xiong was at match point and served it to Kulkarni’s backhand.
Jiaxin Xiong prepares to serve the ball to Kaustubh Kulkarni. (Courtesy of Kaustubh Kulkarni)
“When (Xiong) was making him step around the backhand to take the ball with the forehand from the backhand side, he went just straight for a kill shot. He didn’t let it come back,” Green said.
Kulkarni went for a killshot because – if Xiong was able to return the ball – Kulkarni would be way out of position, causing him to strain his body to try and save the point. He pulled off two kill shots in a row, and now the score was a deuce.
It was 10-10 when Kulkarni served the ball to Xiong’s forehand.
Kulkarni wins the point on his dominant hand and is now up 11-10. It is match point, and he serves for the win.
“You would have expected a short serve to the forehand because he’s trying to play the forehand diagonal, which is his strength. But he ended up serving long to the backhand, and Jiaxin was not expecting this,” Green said.
Xiong tried to react in time, but also with enough finesse, to return the ball.
“When you’re attacking backspin, you have to be really conscious of hitting the ball high enough that it doesn’t go into the net, but KK served long and it was a fast serve too,” Green said. “So it didn’t give Jiaxin the time to really process what was going on.”
He called it a brilliant move in terms of reverse psychology, and said no coach would instruct a player to do that serve.
Contact CU Independent Video Editor Linus Loughry at linus.loughry@colorado.edu.
