At 28, she continues to navigate her parents’ expectations, often stereotypically associated with Asian immigrants, of academic excellence and of getting a “normal job”.

“We always try to convince her to stop playing. We just want her to have a normal job,” her Linda Liu told the Wall Street Journal.

“We are traditional Chinese parents. We always want her to focus on school. I always wanted her to get a job and be a regular girl.”

Zhang agrees with her mother’s views to an extent, as she feels that all it takes for a setback in a sporting career is an injury or a losing streak.

“There’s so many things that can happen that can take away your stability in an instant,” Zhang said.

Zhang grew up on the campus of Stanford University where her family lived as her father was then a mathematics professor at the elite institute. Her mother is a former table tennis player who represented her province in China’s Xi’an.

She began training professionally in table tennis when she was seven. The dining table of her tiny Palo Alto apartment doubled up as a table tennis table, according to the WSJ report.

She began competing in international events since 2007.

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““A lot of Asian parents—that’s why you see so many talented players, no matter boys or girls, after they reach college, they say bye bye,” Team USA’s Chinese-origin coach Jun Gao said.