Table Tennis Career
Fukuhara began playing at the age of 3 and became a professional at age 10. The following year, she became the youngest player ever to become a member of the Japanese national team. Because of her age, she has been regarded as a "child prodigy" in table tennis. At age 13, in 2002, she became the youngest-ever Japanese representative for the Asian Games. In 2003, she reached the quarter-final, losing to top-seeded Zhang Yining, in her World Championships debut in Paris. In 2004, she took part in the World Team Championships and helped Team Japan finish third.
Read more about this topic: Ai Fukuhara
Famous quotes containing the words table, tennis and/or career:
“The table kills more people than war does.”
—Catalan proverb, quoted in Colman Andrews, Catalan Cuisine.
“I know some of my self-worth comes from tennis, and it’s hard to think of doing something else where you know you’ll never be the best. Tennis players are rare creatures: where else in the world can you know that you’re the best? The definitiveness of it is the beauty of it, but it’s not all there is to life and I’m ready to explore the alternatives.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)