Although some students play recreational ping-pong at Jesse Owens South, four members of the Ohio State table tennis club will travel to Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas, to compete in the National Collegiate Table Tennis Team Championships this weekend.

Frank Charvet, the club president, Jacob Mathew, an MBA student, Ender Cigeroglu, a master’s student in mechanical engineering, and Michael Yao, a freshman in electrical engineering, will represent OSU in the team competition.

Charvet and Mathew will also compete in the singles competition.

Singles competition will open up Friday morning while the team will begin competition Saturday.

Charvet said he wants the team to reach the semi-finals.

“That will be a tough target, but we can do it,” he said.

The team is currently seeded tenth, but Charvet said the team should be ranked higher because it has not played that much. He said he hopes the team will finish sixth or seventh.

Highly ranked teams include Texas Wesleyan University, University of Maryland and University of Southern California. Some of the collegiate competitors are in the national table tennis professional league, Charvet said.

The team qualified for the national championship after winning both regional matches during this year’s autumn and winter quarters, Charvet said. During the regional matches, OSU competed against six teams in the Ohio region. The team went 5-0 against all the teams except Shawnee State University, where OSU finished 4-1.

The Ohio region consists of different collegiate teams from Ohio and small sections of Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky. Indiana University could not attend the regional event this year but it is a strong table tennis team, Charvet said. This will be the first time OSU has competed against other regional teams.

Although many of these table tennis clubs have been dominating the tables for a few years, Charvet founded the OSU team this past autumn quarter when he arrived at OSU for his doctorate degree. This is the first table tennis club at OSU.

Initially the only response was from men. However, a women’s table tennis team is beginning to form and will hopefully be a club sport by Autumn 2005, Charvet said.

Alex Li Zuo, coach of the table tennis club, said there are three aspects of the sport many people do not think about.

First, table tennis is not only for recreation.

“Once you learn how to play, it’s a really hard exercise for both brain and body,” Zuo said.

Most people do not see table tennis as a sport but it actually is a physical activity, said Matt Hurak, the director of marketing and fundraising for the club.

Second, it’s a safe sport.

“It’s unlikely you’ll get injured,” Zuo said.

Finally, table tennis can be played by people of all ages.

Zuo is from China and introduces different techniques from China to the advanced members of the club.

Advanced members of the club can pay a fee to receive coached practices from Zuo, emphasizing different strokes and stroke combinations.

The club held a doubles tournament at the end of winter quarter at Jesse Owens South. About 30 students participated and many enjoyed the competition, Charvet said. The club wants to host one main tournament on campus every quarter. Charvet said he wants to host a singles tournament in Larkins Hall sometime this quarter.

Although the club has only been on campus for a short period of time, the team has already achieved success by qualifying for national competition. The reason for this success is due to two or three guys who were willing to do everything, said Doug Hurak, the club’s treasurer.

Charvet started sending e-mails and hanging up fliers to get students involved with the club. He also went to Jesse Owens South on Friday nights to play table tennis to draw some interest.

The club had 32 members last quarter and membership is expected to rise this quarter, Charvet said. The main problem the club faces, however, is finding available space on campus and the number of tables available to play table tennis. He said it is hard to have around 30 students wanting to play table tennis with only a handful of tables or not enough room to set up tables.

The club raised approximately one thousand dollars in February through fundraising to buy more tables and T-shirts for the team.

Hurak said there is a difference between ping-pong and table tennis.

“When you hit the ball it makes that sound, ‘ping,'” Doug Hurak said about ping-pong. “It has no mental strategy to it. It’s more recreational.” Table tennis is more intense, Matt Hurak said. “It’s actually a sport. There are professionals at table tennis,” he said.