Nostroke said:
She came in 3rd in the World Championships and won the All Japan Open twice in a row.
Ga Young was only ranked 8th when she came to America.
Discounting the top 3 WPBA players, the rest of the World is equally as strong as the WPBA IMHO.
I hear Xiao Ting breaks harder than Ga Young. If she does, i don't think it can be by much-Ill find out this weekend in Palm Harbor.
Actually, her Japan All Open wins came in 2002 and 2005. One of the years in between she couldn't get a visa and the other year she didn't win.
She's also the current Asian Women's Champion.
Her 3rd in the 2005 World Champs was her first attempt.
Not sure what else she has won on the WPA ranking events, but she doesn't get to play in all the events. She hasn't even been able to get a visa for the Taiwan Amway women's event in recent years. Hopefully she'll be able to attend this year's women's world champs there.
As for the pronunciation of her name, I explained it earlier in this thread. Tbeaux' explanation reads phonetically pretty close though.
btw: Kim Ga Young beat her in the semi on the way to her World Championship win, but Pan got her back at this year's Japan All Open.
She's yet to go up against Allison and Karen (at least in big tourneys) as far as I know, but I think she'll be pretty close.
I played her for the first time over 4 years ago and said then that I think she could be a world champion in the women's game and even give most male pros a good game.
She lacks tournament experience but is fast getting more and more. She's near impossible to beat on her own practice table, though I got her once. I think she was feeling generous that day and gave me a few chances so I could warm up.
One day I played her 8 games and had 2 visits to the table. Each visit I was hooked and got out, but she cleaned up. OUCH!!!
