Yijun Feng earned a spot on the TeamUSA Olympic team on Day 2 of the North American Olympic Qualification Tournament, April 9 in Markham, Ontario.
The 19 year-old Feng is the hottest of the American players, having won the 2015 National Championship triple crown by winning the Men’s National Championship, the Men’s Doubles National Championship, and the Mixed Doubles National Championship. He was also the 2015 US Youth Champion and his team won the 2015 North American Teams Championships.
Feng is both exciting and precise as a player. He plays penhold and uses both sides of the racket. In many ways, Feng is not the norm for American players where most at the top of our rankings have been aggressive, two-sided, shakehands-style, offensive players. Even his location is a little different – he resides just outside of Atlanta, Georgia (rather than from one of the West Coast or Northeastern hotbeds of the sport). He is sponsored by STIGA and Paddle Palace.
In Markham, Feng punched his ticket to Rio with a 4-0 victory over Sharon Alguetti in the Men’s Final on the second day (11-4, 11-7, 11-7, 11-3). Earlier in the day, he had defeated both Kanak Jha and Timothy Wang – each of whom will join Feng on TeamUSA as the men’s team representing North America at the Rio Olympics this summer. TeamUSA will also send a women’s team which will include Jennifer Wu, Lily Zhang and Jiaqi Zheng.
Watch the Day 2 Final Here:
Check in regularly with the news at Paddle Palace as we cheer on TeamUSA.
Yijun Feng earned a spot on the TeamUSA Olympic team on Day 2 of the North American Olympic Qualification Tournament, April 9 in Markham, Ontario.
The 19 year-old Feng is the hottest of the American players…
