HO Tin-Tin

Grip
Penhold (ittf.com, 04 Feb 2017; Instagram profile, 02 Mar 2020)

Style of play
Attack (tabletennisengland.co.uk, 05 Jun 2014)

General
BALANCING SPORT AND STUDY
Alongside table tennis, she is a medical student at the University of Nottingham in England and took a break from her studies during the 2019/20 academic year to focus on preparing for the 2020 Olympic Games while based in Linz, Austria. After resuming her course in September 2020, she said she was unable to celebrate her selection for the 2020 Games due to exams. "I'm very happy, of course, but I'm in the middle of exams at the moment [June 2021], so I think I'll process it all a bit later. Ever since I've been young, it's been a dream to get to the Olympics but recently it's been more prevalent. It has been hard to balance both [sport and university] but that's part of the challenge. I'm really lucky because I'm a sports scholar at Nottingham and the university have a really good table tennis set-up, which allows me to train and study well. Some of England's coaches are also based there." (tabletennisengland.co.uk, 11 Jun 2021; impactnottingham.com, 02 Apr 2021; profeet.co.uk, 20 May 2020; peterboroughtoday.co.uk, 25 May 2020)

NAME ORIGIN
Her father Charles chose her name, Tin Tin, to match the initials of table tennis. He has played and coached the sport, and considered calling her Pong when she was born. Her brother's name is Ping. "If I didn't enjoy table tennis I would just have continued with my life normally as Tin Tin also has a nice Chinese meaning - 'Tin' means 'sky'." (bbc.com, 14 Jan 2014; tabletennis365.com, 04 Feb 2016)