As a mother of a 14-year-old table tennis champion on the U.S. women's team, Xin Hsing says there are factors that are critical to success: the child's dedication, family support, good coaching and the table tennis club. 

"You miss one, and you will not go anywhere," said Hsing, a San Jose Evergreen resident. 

Her daughter, Ariel Hsing, trains six times a week at the ICC Table Tennis Center in Milpitas, the largest full-time table tennis facility in Northern California. The center has just wrapped up a week-long camp with 53 junior players of all levels, including one who flew in from Atlanta. 

Silicon Valley parents originally from China and India, where the sport is already popular, are behind the children who practice at the center, which offers after school programs and camps for junior players. 

Rajul Sheth, director of sports and recreation, was once an international player himself for India. He's also the 2008 and 2009 Developmental Coach of the Year in his sport, selected by the U.S. Olympic Committee. Today he recruits top-notch coaches from abroad who arrive on visas. And he's confident he has two players bound for the 2012 Olympics.

"It looks like a sure shot to us," said Sheth, about Palo Alto resident Lily Zhang, 14, and Ariel Hsing, who turns 15 next week. Both young women are sponsored by the center, and they receive equipment, uniforms and 20 hours of elite level training each week. 

There are star players from Milpitas as well. Russell Middle School student Isabel Chu, 13, ranks third nationally among girls under 13 years of age. Her goal is to make the U.S. Girls Cadet Team.

Aashay Patel, 13, a Milpitas resident who attends Challenger School, ranks eighth in the U.S. for boys under 14 years of age. He says he doesn't get nervous at competitions.

"To play table tennis, you have to stay calm," he said. "I try to just have fun." When he's not playing table tennis four to five times a week, he plays video games on his Sony PS3.

Many of the students training for table tennis at the center saw their parents playing it first. 

Lily Zhang's father used to teach at Stanford, and the family lived on campus where there was a table tennis table set up near the washers and dryers. It was an activity the couple would partake while waiting for their laundry.

"She would watch us play," said mother Linda Zhang. Her daughter was 4 years old back then. But it was a friend's dad who took his daughter and Lily to the Palo Alto Table Tennis Club to play.

The lessons were a half-hour-long, to start, then gradually increased to one hour, then two hours.  Today, Lily trains daily, with about two hours of private lessons each day. 

As the winter break approaches, many students look forward to some time off. But that's not necessarily the case with these players. After five or six international competitions this year, Ariel Hsing will sit out the 2010 World Junior Table Tennis Championships in Slovakia, but Lily Zhang and Prachi Jha, a student who also trains at the center, will represent the U.S. at the competition.

Two more table tennis competitions wrap up the end of the year. The ICC Table Tennis Center 2010 California State Open is Dec. 3-5, and the U.S. Nationals is in two weeks in Las Vegas.