Johnny Huang, Canadian table tennis player

Johnny Huang was born in Canton, China on October 5, 1962. However, he later shifted to Toronto, Canada. Currently, he plays for the Charleroi Table Tennis Club in Belgium. Johnny Huang is placed seventy-eighth in ITTF Men’s Singles rankings. However, he is still the number one player of his adapted country, Canada. Johnny Huang plays with a shakehand pips attack. At the Olympic Games held in Atlanta in 1996, Johnny Huang showed that he was among the top table tennis players, getting the fifth place in men’s singles, beating defending champion Jan-Ove Waldner of Sweden. Johnny Huang was standing first overall in the ITTF Pro rankings in 1996 and qualified for the finals in 1997. In the Commonwealth Champions in 1994, Johnny Huang won gold in men’s singles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles events.

Johnny Huang was the Men’s Singles champion in the North American Championships from 1996 and he held that position for long, winning 7 times in a row. He was the finalist in Australian Open 1997 singles event. He reached the semifinals in the Malaysian Open in 1997 and in the Croatian Open in 1998. Johnny Huang won the Men’s Singles title in the Poland Open in 1997. He was a bronze medallist at the World Cup Championships in 1993 and he was the Men’s singles champion at the Japan Open in 1994.

At the ITTF Pro Tour held in Florida in 2001, Johnny Huang overcame Robert Gardos, Werner Schlager, and Oh Sang Eun on his way to the finals. In the semifinals, he was facing Chuan Chi-Yuan. Their styles were an interesting contrast. Johnny Huang smashes from both flanks with a shakehand grip and plays an all-out close to the table hitting game. Chuan is more acrobatic with a double-winged close to the table looping game. Johnny Huang was 2 games down, losing 15-21 and 19-21. In the third game also, Johnny Huang was down 5-9 and then 7-13. Then, he started hitting back to win six points in a row and level at 13-all. Finally, he took the game 21-17. In the next 2 games, Chuan started making lot of mistakes and Johnny Huang won them comfortably at 21-12 and 21-12 to reach the finals.

In the finals, Johnny Huang was up against world number 4 Liu Guozheng. He took the first game 21-13, but conceded the next at 17-21. Again, he came back to win the third game at 21-17. However, Liu was unstoppable after that, wining the fourth game at 21-14 and the fifth game at 21-17. Johnny Huang had to be content with the second spot.

One of the most controversial moments in the career of Johnny Huang came when he walked out of the court, accusing the umpire of bias and his opponents of cheating. This happened when he and his Canadian Pradeeban Peter-Paul were playing against the Welsh team of Adam Robertson and Ryan Jenkins in men’s doubles quarterfinal match in August 2002. The Canadian pair 12-10 won the first game. In the second game, they were trailing 11-12, when Huang claimed that a Robertson serve did not land in the correct court. The umpire refused to change the call. Huang walked out of the game. The match was awarded to the Welsh team. Johnny Huang was accused that he was acting more like Jonathon Power in his reaction to the controversial call.