Kanak Jha (born June 19, 2000) is an American table tennis player. He is a three-time Olympian (2016, 2020, and 2024), and was the US national champion five times, winning the national title between 2016 and 2019 for a record four straight national titles and adding a fifth title in 2024 on his way to the Olympics in Paris.
He was the youngest American athlete to participate in the 2016 Olympics and is also the first American born in the 2000s to qualify for the Olympics.[3]
Jha won his 4th straight US National title in 2019. Jha pulled off a bronze medal at the 2019 Pan American Games in mixed doubles and singles. In the 2019 World Team Cup, Jha defeated Anton Källberg and Kristian Karlsson to lead the US past Sweden out of the group stage.[5]
2020
Notable international wins for Jha in early 2020 include Uda Yukiya and Zhou Qihao.[6] After the pandemic, Jha played in the 2020 World Cup, in which he lost in seven games to Liam Pitchford and deuce in the seventh to Chuang Chih-yuan, his favorite player growing up.[7] In mid-2020, Jha signed with the German Bundesliga team in Ochsenhausen.
2021
Jha was selected to represent the United States at the Tokyo Olympics in the men's singles and team event. He spent a large amount of his final days training in the United States with his Olympic teammate at the new 888 Table Tennis Center, a club for which he is an ambassador.[8] Jha chose not to defend his US national title in July, opting instead to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Jha lost 4-2 to Russia’s Kirill Skachkov in the round of 64.[9] Team USA lost to Sweden in the first round of the team event, with Jha scoring USA's lone victory over Mattias Falck.[10]
2024
Jha won his 5th US National title on July 6, 2024. Jha was trailing Darryl Tsao in his quarterfinal match, finding himself down 0-3 in the best of 7 match. He showed the resilience of a true champion, by first bringing the match to 3-3 and then scoring the last two points of the final game, winning 11-9.
Jha secured the first men’s singles win for USA at the 2024 Olympics, defeating Vladislav Ursu of Moldova 4-0, advancing to the round of 64.
References
^"Kanak Jha". Rio 2016. Archived from the original on August 28, 2016. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
