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Date of Birth: Apr. 7, 1978 Residence: Newark Education: BA in Computer Science from UC Berkeley Ethnicity: Indian Rating: 2410 Style: All-around aggressive with strength of backhand topspin Equipment: Butterfly Michael Maze blade with Bryce rubber on both sides Sponsor: None Clubs Played: Fremont Table Tennis Club |
After seeing his father's high-quality paddle and table-tennis trophy at the age of five, Shashin gained interest in the sport while living in India. His father made a deal that if Shashin hit the ball against the wall 100 times in a row, his father would give him his paddle. Immediately, Shashin spent hours doing this and was able to meet his goal and get his much-desired paddle. Then came his move to America at the age of six. He came into table-tennis in the US when at the age of ten, his father saw a newspaper article of the Union City Club and coach Bradley Yuen. Soon after, tournaments began and Palo Alto Table Tennis Club became his home away from home.
During his years growing up, he collected fifteen national titles as a youth player and reached the quarterfinals in team and singles at an International Junior Open in Taipei, Taiwan. He had the big goal of making the 2000 Olympic Team and took lots of time off his studies at UC Berkeley and made many international trips to Sweden, Germany, and China. At the first stage of the Olympic Trials, Shashin was seeded tenth and did not have to play the preliminary qualifier. He had to finish in the top 8 to advance to the final Northern American Olympic Trials. He had three must-win matches in his final three matches and won all three to advance to the final stage. There, he had the hardest preliminary round-robin featuring former Chinese National Team Member and North America #1 Cheng Yinghua and Taiwan's former top junior and North America #3, Canada's Kurt Liu. In the singles competition, he was one of two players to take a game against Cheng in Cheng's nine matches and was eliminated by two points by 2000 Olympic Team Member Kurt Liu. He finished as the first alternate in the doubles competition.
Since then, Shashin has focused on school and coaching at the Fremont Table Tennis Club and other places and still has hopes to make the 2008 Beijing Olympic Team. Shashin's best international win is against Brazil's Olympian Thiago Monteiro at the 1999 Pro Tour Swedish Open and his best US win is against 2-time Olympian Khoa Nguyen. Khoa is Vietnamese-American and Shashin beat him at a Vietnamese New Year tournament and so does not care that he has lost to Khoa all other times!
Shashin has founded the UC Berkeley Table Tennis Club, helped start the Stanford University Club, the Northern California Division of the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association, and the Northern California Table Tennis League.